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From Mafia To Organised Crime A Comparative Analysis of Policing Models
From Mafia To Organised Crime A Comparative Analysis of Policing Models
Series Editors
Reece Walters
Faculty of Law
Queensland University of Technology
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Deborah Drake
Social Policy & Criminology Department
The Open University
Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
The Palgrave Critical Criminological Perspectives book series aims to
showcase the importance of critical criminological thinking when exam-
ining problems of crime, social harm and criminal and social justice.
Critical perspectives have been instrumental in creating new research
agendas and areas of criminological interest. By challenging state defined
concepts of crime and rejecting positive analyses of criminality, critical
criminological approaches continually push the boundaries and scope of
criminology, creating new areas of focus and developing new ways of
thinking about, and responding to, issues of social concern at local,
national and global levels. Recent years have witnessed a flourishing of
critical criminological narratives and this series seeks to capture the
original and innovative ways that these discourses are engaging with
contemporary issues of crime and justice.
From Mafia
to Organised Crime
A Comparative Analysis of Policing Models
Anna Sergi
Department of Sociology
University of Essex
Colchester, United Kingdom
vii
Contents
Index 309
ix
List of Figures
xi
1
Introduction: The aims
of this comparative research
1. What are the historical events that have been shaping the concepts of
mafias and organised crime at national level in Italy, the US, Australia
and the UK?
2. How are the concepts of mafias and organised crime conceptualised
across the four legal systems and among the institutions of the four
countries? What kind of differences are there in the way both concepts
are constructed in criminal law and criminal procedure?
3. What policing models do the four countries implement in the fight
against mafia and organised crime on the basis of their own concep-
tualisations of the phenomena?
4. How do policing models implemented in the four countries relate to
each other? What are the convergences and divergences among them?
5. How do the four policing models relate to, or are influenced by,
international instruments against, and conceptualisations of, mafia
and organised crime?
between Italy and mafias and move towards more nuanced and con-
temporary conceptualisations of the mafia phenomenon in comparative
perspectives.
consider data collection separate from data analysis as they both were
happening at the same time albeit for different contexts.
In essence, this research has been mainly based on textual data from
official sources as enriched and guided by both formal and informal
interviews and vice versa. As for the purposes of qualitative research
(Blaikie, 2000; Bachman and Shutt, 2011), interviews have allowed to
further explore the practicalities of laws, procedures and concepts in the
documents, while the documents have added validity to the data col-
lected through the interviews. Obviously observations, extra readings
and informal conversations have also played a part to develop my own
thinking and my own perceptions on the topic.
As it often happens in qualitative interviewing, the sampling process
of this project has been guided both by the need to target certain sources
to answer the research questions and by the need to produce a relevant
range of situations, which could enable me to formulate and sustain my
arguments (Mason, 2002). More specifically, my sample for the inter-
views aimed at being:
The interviews considered for this study are many and have been carried
out in different moments. A breakdown of data collection through
interviews in all four countries, therefore is best summarised by looking
at the institutions that I have approached, both by engaging with their
official documents and through interviews with people holding key
functions in those institutions. In some cases I have conducted meetings
with more than one person at the same time. Obviously, legislations,
6 1 Introduction: The aims of this comparative research
both in criminal law and criminal procedure and other indirectly rele-
vant norms (i.e. money laundering regulation or confiscation proce-
dures) have been consulted in all countries prior to the interviews.
1. Italy (interviews and meetings between 2012 and 2013 and in 2015
in Reggio Calabria, Rome and Milan)
the analysis, which led to the writing process of this book, has, therefore,
gone further in literal and discourse analysis, through which intentions
and/or political agendas within documents or oral narratives were revealed
(Webley, 2010; May, 2001). Indeed, the analysis of discourse used in
institutional settings to present a crime issue is crucial to gain a better
understanding of its social construction (Carrapico, 2014; Stritzel, 2012).
At the very core of each strategic choice for the analysis across four
countries has been the focus on comparative criminal justice both as a
research method and as a guideline for the investigation overall.
1
The semiotic square was introduced by Algirdas Greimas to better analyse paired concepts. At
the basis of the semiotic square is a visualisation of characteristics of a text, in terms of semantic
convergences and divergences. See Greimas A. (1987) On Meaning: Selected Writings in Semiotic
Theory (trans. Perron PJ and Collins FH). London: Frances Pinter.
Mafias and Organised Crime: Prejudices and Complexity . . . 11
mafia groups are not just Italian. Similarly, in Italy there are criminal
groups, which are not mafias. Obviously the difference between the two
typologies is not clear-cut – far from it – which is why this book attempts to
place characteristics and definers across the mafia–organised crime spectrum
that is not static but dynamic. The spectrum is just an intellectual exercise
that supports the analysis of the “law in books” and the “law in action” in
response to these complex phenomena. Indeed, the continuous discussion
of such pre-judgements is necessarily part of this book, and it requires the
scrutiny of social and cultural contexts of the criminal issues object of
enquiry.
As remarkably pointed out by Melossi, Sozzo and Sparks (2011: 3),
“we should expect each instance of ‘the criminal question’ to carry
the weight of its history and to display the obdurate legal, institu-
tional, linguistic particularities of the political culture of which it is
an intrinsic component”. Discussing policing systems against mafias
and organised crime, from a comparative perspective, means under-
standing the “historical embeddedness” of both mafia and organised
crime and the control systems against them. Obviously, historical
embeddedness cannot be conceived separately from social and cultural
traditions (Melossi, 2001). Crucially, if both crimes and control
systems are embedded in their own socio-cultural history and, there-
fore, situated within political and economic contexts, a question
emerges about the possibility to meaningfully compare them across
national systems. Issues of translatability, diffusion, transfer of con-
cepts and policies in criminology and criminal justice have been
widely explored and all will be relevant for the arguments in this
work. The case studies in this book, and the four policing models,
have been constructed in the attempt to show both the historical and
the socio-cultural embeddedness of both the criminal phenomenon
and its control strategies. Ultimately, this book wishes to compare
through complexity of concepts rather than approximation. I argue
that, although mafia groups are certainly embedded within the spe-
cificity of Italian historical, economic and socio-cultural contexts, it is
precisely because of this specificity that a comparison is necessary. In
ages of globalised “multiplicity without unity” (Beck, 2000: 11)
intelligible pluralist conversations like this one are certainly needed.
This Book 15
This Book
In an attempt to simplify the reader’s journey, I believe it is helpful to
summarise schematically what this book is about, to set expectations and
avoid confusion. As said, this book is about political and institutional
intentions to fight mafias and organised crime groups in four countries.
More specifically and in logical order:
This effort stems from two necessities. First, I believe the legacy of the
word “mafia” with its strong (Italian) connotations needs revisiting as
its meaning has become too fixed in institutional perceptions – mainly
outside of Italy – and does not allow for a dynamic conceptualisation
of the realities that the phenomenon “mafia”, both historically and in
contemporary days, includes. Second, the relationship between the
word “mafia” and the terminology of “organised crime” needs to be
assessed in light of the social dimensions of mafias, rather than just
their criminal constructions. This is how I construct the “spectrum”
which can be applied to describe criminal groups as well as their
presence in a given location. As it will be seen in Chapter 2, the
spectrum can go from “more mafia” to “less mafia” where “more
mafia” means the exhibition of certain social and political traits of
the group and “less mafia” instead is a residual form of “organised
crime”, with emphasis on the word “crime”. The focus is therefore on
“mafia” groups, albeit in relation to “organised crime”, precisely
because I want to stress the need to reconsider the meaning of mafias
as a useful concept when undressed of the heavy legacy that it still
carries in institutional perceptions.
2. When discussing “mafias” this book refers to two ideas: the concep-
tualisation of “Italian mafias” – as starting point for the analysis of a
16 1 Introduction: The aims of this comparative research
This might be the most controversial aspect of the book. Neither the four
policing models in this book are predetermined schemes nor they promote
mutually exclusive categorisations. As said, these models are the result of a
first stage comparative analysis. More specifically, these models are a way to
make the comparison easier but still rich and specific enough for a second-
level comparative analysis. The models are the result of the following
reasoning: (a) the mafia–organised crime spectrum recognises different
aspects that various groups manifest in various latitudes in criminal and
social contexts; (b) the institutional responses to these manifestations differ
from country to country; (c) while it is certainly possible to just compare
laws and interventions in each country, I want to look at “intentions” – the
motivations behind laws and policing interventions; (d) in order to do this,
there is the need to look at the way institutional perceptions, law-making
and law enforcement processes interact with each other; (e) even though
national systems to contrast mafias and/or organised crime might reach
similar results and even depart from similar conceptualisations, my
research in each country has revealed that some concepts more than others
drive institutional perceptions, policy-making and finally policing models.
This is why the four policing models in this book carry names/labels
(Structure, Enterprise, Visibility and Activity); the labels represent the
most influential concept in each country. These models are not pre-
established categories and shall not be considered as mutually exclusive:
indeed, the models do share more than one characteristic. Describing the
Italian model as the “Structure” model, for example, helps us understand
what concept (structure) acts as the main “drive” of the policing approach
against mafias and organised crime and what concept (structure) reveals
something about the intentions of policy-making in the country; it does not
mean that the idea of “structure” is not important or relevant even in other
models or strategies against organised crime and mafias, for example, the
“Enterprise” model of the US. Rather, in other countries there is a different
concept, which is deemed more relevant. While on the one side these models
18 1 Introduction: The aims of this comparative research
are not based on mutually exclusive concepts, they are indeed peculiar of the
country of reference at the point of forming the basis for a comparison.
5. This book is a comparative project that does not just aim at describing
and presenting similarities and differences, but also and more crucially
aims at understanding intentions and implications of similarities and
differences (Chapters 7–8).
Policing models that include different stages of the countering strategy from
policy-making to investigations to criminal law and procedure are the first
stage of the comparative effort. At the second stage, content and discourse
of emerging convergences and divergences across the four countries will be
analysed. These convergences and divergences are situated within interna-
tional frameworks and conceptualisations of the notions of mafias and
organised crime across borders and for international cooperation.
Finally, one of the overarching themes of the book is that there cannot
be a unique model to fight mafias and organised crime across nations.
Mafias and organised crime groups – as conceptualised and placed across
the spectrum and within international frameworks – might display social
and cultural elements that require specific social and cultural attention.
However, harmonisation of policing approaches as well as comprehension
of criminal phenomena is crucial for international cooperation because of
the transnational reach of certain criminal activities and groups. Integrated
models are possible and desirable when they are the result of comparative
and specific analysis rather than policy transfer and approximation.
References
Bachman RD and Shutt RK. (2011) The Practice of Research in Criminology and
Criminal Justice, London: SAGE.
Beck U. (2000) What Is Globalisation?, Cambridge: Polity.
Blaikie N. (2000) Designing Social Research, Cambridge: Polity.
Bogner A, Littig B and Menz W. (2009) Interviewing Experts, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
References 19
Three are the main concepts rooted in the principles of criminal law
that we can connect to the criminological study of organised crime and
mafias.
“producing and/or selling illegal goods and services” and groups that,
instead, aim at governing the markets by “providing services of dispute
settlement, cartel enforcement and more generally governance of illegal
transactions”. This distinction mirrors a more widespread focus on what
criminal groups do rather than what they are presumed to be (Varese, 2011;
Campana and Varese, 2013). Arguably, shifting the focus on the actions of
criminal groups, rather than their structure, also justifies the growing
concern for the “seriousness” of organised crime in criminal policy together
with the increasing emphasis on the transnationality of organised criminal
activities of the past decades. These connotations obviously also impact on
the criminalisation of organised crime and its categorisation in the law.
When it comes to the seriousness of organised crime, recent scholarly
critique has been focusing on the analysis of policy discourse (Lavorgna
and Sergi, 2016; Sergi, 2016a). As we will see also in the case studies, the
conceptualisation of organised crime in policy-making, has been hugely
influenced by a broad and undefined notion of seriousness. Even though
some definitions of “serious crime” exist, they are mostly linked to
sentencing regulations. Serious crimes are punished with imprisonment
(e.g. the UN Palermo Convention considers serious crimes those
punishable with at least four years imprisonment), they are harmful to
the general public and they are sophisticated crimes (Edwards and Levi,
2008). Moreover, the use of a paradigm of seriousness to classify
organised crime – for which policy-makers describe organised crime(s)
as ontologically serious crime(s) or as a series of crimes that raise public
concern because of their seriousness – and has a number of conse-
quences. First and foremost to affirm that organised crime is serious
essentially means that organised crime is sophisticated and complex and
that such complexity should be reflected in the law (Sergi, 2016a).
Moreover, it means that organised crime is harmful – to various degrees
to individuals, society, public health, finance and so on. In clear support
of this juxtaposition between serious and organised crime is the rhetoric
of transnational organised crime. Transnationality either adds a layer of
seriousness (again, in terms of sophistication and complexity) to what
would otherwise be a national crime (e.g. domestic versus transnational
human trafficking) or adds nothing to crimes that are necessarily cross-
border, and therefore serious because of that (like the trafficking
30 2 Mafia and Organised Crime: The Spectrum and the Models
Everyone can see that this centennial and almost impenetrable system of
high and low arbitrary acts could not avoid to produce the saddest effects:
it increased misery and made it scary; it killed public conscience and the
moral and juridical senses of people. And the idea of “useful” substituted
the idea of “good”; personal violence substituted collective justice.
Everyone was persuaded that private vendettas were the best way to
claim your rights and that laws and tribunals were nothing but an
administrative pleonasm, just irony. And because the government and
the rich were connected and could tyrannise the poor, then the only thing
left for the poor was to become delinquents, thieves and murderers to
secure protection and impunity and improve their social condition.
Aside from historiographical comments that critics can make upon this text,
it seems quite fundamental to notice how the mafia phenomenon, even
though it clearly was already inserted in a path of delinquency and deviance,
is essentially a social phenomenon, linked to the complexities of a dynamic
society. Together with the social, extremely local characterisation of mafias,
the economic side of the phenomenon has always been considered the other
side of coin. If mafias developed because of structural elements of society,
then they prospered because of economic exploitation. More importantly,
an analysis of mafias as economic systems contradicts early conceptualisa-
tions of mafias as anti-state or alternatives to states forces (Pantaleone,
1962). Indeed as noticed by Antimafia Prosecutor Giovanni Falcone –
killed by Cosa Nostra in 1992 – in his seminal book Cose di Cosa Nostra
(Falcone and Padovani, 1992: 34):
1
Intended as attitude to mind one’s own business as a sign of respect or out of fear of
consequences. See Omertà in the Global Informality Encyclopedia, at: http://in-formality.com/
wiki/index.php?title=Omertà for more details.
The Socio-legal Identity of Mafia 35
the mafia structure and its growth in power. We can essentially argue that at
the two edges of the OC–mafia spectrum are complex crimes (on the OC
side) and (political) power (on the mafia side). In order to understand how
one can think of an OC–mafia spectrum along these lines, we can focus on
four main aspects that touch both concepts in their socio-legal evolution and
help us understand, albeit through abstract categorisations once again, beha-
viours across both concepts, always keeping in mind the structure versus
activity basic differentiation:
Territorial Sovereignty
state, or in terms of hierarchies within the group and/or interactions with the
economy or the legal sectors. For example, Sicilian Cosa Nostra’s strategy of
terror in early 1990s (violent visibility) has been considered not only the
product of a specific opposition strategy against the state wanted by the boss
Totò Riina but also the “career suicide” of Riina himself within the majority
of members of Cosa Nostra, who did not fully approve this strategy (Dalla
Chiesa, 2010). Violent visibility of a criminal group is not generally considered
a trait of sophistication of the group but rather a transient characteristic or a
sign of an existing conflict in a given region, temporary as it is bound to
trigger law enforcement’s interventions (Paoli, 2003). Tacit visibility, on the
other side, is a sign of tight, more established control of territory – where
everyone knows or suspects who the criminals are but silence/omertà is the
rule, not by coercion but through social consensus (Sciarrone, 2006). Example
of groups which exhibited in different moments both violent and tacit
visibility strategies towards the state and local communities outside of the
Italian examples are some of the Mexican cartels, notably the Familia
Michoacana and their splinter group Los Caballeros Templaros in the state
of Michoacán (Aranda, 2014). These groups acted through exemplary use of
violence while establishing themselves as governing, “self-defence”, actors in
the territory and aiming at gathering consensus through community care.
Arguably, and to simplify, tacit visibility aims at protection from law enforce-
ment, thus it is a form of secrecy towards the outside. Violent visibility, on the
other side, aims at protection within the territory and against intruders,
through fear rather than consensus. In the exploitation of communities and
their silence, consensus is better than fear in the long term. Under this
perspective (successful) mafia groups will be characterised by consensus and
secrecy via tacit visibility to maximise social power and prestige. “Other”
organised crime groups will be characterised by secrecy via either violent
visibility through fear or tacit invisibility to maximise financial profitability of
their criminal activities.
Moreover, secrecy is a matter of trust. Dynamics of trust are quite crucial
in understanding how criminal organisations employ or exploit their social
capital, how ties are cemented, why certain relationships are more successful
than others and whether or not the survival of the organisation is linked to
violent or tacit forms of visibility. Obviously, because of the nature of
certain crimes, trust is what substitutes the lack of recourse to legal means to
44 2 Mafia and Organised Crime: The Spectrum and the Models
Issues of secrecy and trust are problematised even further when criminal
groups or individuals belonging to criminal groups move or their activities
are poly-territorial. As we will see in more detail in the rest of the book,
mobility of criminal groups, either in terms of poly-territoriality of criminal
activities or in terms of mafia migration, is a by-product of globalisation as
much as it is an effect of capitalism (Ruggiero, 1985; Morselli et al., 2011).
When criminal groups or activities move abroad, questions about similarity
or diversity in comparison to groups and activities in the territory of origin
necessarily surface (Arsovska, 2015). These questions relate to the composi-
tions of groups before and after they moved, in terms of ethnic ties and
language use, their adaptation or hybridisation once they root elsewhere, or
the prevention mechanisms in place to prevent their rooting (or transplanta-
tion) elsewhere (Sciarrone and Storti, 2014; Sciarrone, 2014; Arsovska,
2015; Lupo, 2002b; Varese, 2011; Varese, 2006; Varese, 2005). In terms
of activities, the rhetoric of transnational organised crime – criminal groups
that commit various crimes across borders – has populated threat assessments
concerned about border security and shared criminal intelligence across
states (Van Duyne, 2011; Sergi, 2016c; Coyne and Bell, 2015). On the
other side, the political difficulties of framing and contrasting “ethnic”
organised crime (Lupo, 2002a; Lupo, 2002b) has confirmed the analysis
of criminal markets across borders as an easier object of analysis. There are
The Organised Crime–Mafia Spectrum 45
various aspects to consider in this case for the purposes of the OC–mafia
spectrum. First, we need to remember that shared language (foreign) might
be a way to ensure secrecy and reinforce ethnic bonds when groups, or
individuals belonging to criminal groups, are abroad (Sergi, 2016c).
However, the necessity to work with local actors on various types of licit
of illicit activities – according to each group’s reach into legal and illegal
markets beyond their original territory – and the difficulties of speaking the
local language satisfactorily might determine a loss of specificity for the
group. For example, a mafia group abroad might not necessarily replicate
its original structure, including its political reach, but it might act in the
territory of arrival as a profit-driven criminal group with a looser character for
a number of factors (Varese, 2011). Similarly, the opposite can happen,
where mafia groups replicate their organisation and keep their bonds with
their original territory through a network of political liaisons, shared cultural
behaviours and language preservation as much as possible (Sergi, 2015a).
For the OC–mafia spectrum, therefore, it is necessary to look at mobility
and migration of organised crime groups and mafia groups in terms of both
activities and structures, first of all by looking at the territories left behind,
the relationships between the original territories and the territories of
arrival, the degree of expansion in the new territories and the specificity
of the relationships between criminals and their communities both at the
departure and at the arrival. Mafia groups successful in the territory of
origin via secrecy, consensus, political connivance and control of territory,
might be more successful in their movements abroad as they might be able
to use their socio-cultural capital to liaise with similar others (usually
belonging to the same community) abroad for both financial gain and
political or social advancement. “Other” organised crime groups will have
the need to ensure the commission of criminal activities across borders and
they can use the flexibility of their ties, the ability to infiltrate and a strategy
of violence to make sure that they control the criminal market(s) they need.
We need to be asking what is that crosses borders, the identity and
reputation of the groups, their activities, portions of their activities or
their (dirty) money? It needs to be remembered that the interventions of
criminal law will necessarily follow the needs of the state of arrival while
international policing can effectively remain a joint or multilateral effort
across states instead.
46 2 Mafia and Organised Crime: The Spectrum and the Models
The Spectrum
Political
Ties with Connivance
Infiltration proximity/
society (legal sectors)
governance
Movements/ Poly-
Ethnic bonds/
globalisation Poly-crime territorial
language
of activities identity
Each case study presents first the historical events that have impacted
upon social and institutional perceptions of (Italian) mafias and/or
organised crime in the country of reference. On the basis of these events
and institutional perceptions, each country will be “ranked” across the
OC–mafia spectrum. Afterwards, I attempt a connection between the
evolution of institutional perceptions and the law, and I deconstruct the
elements of the strategy to then “reassemble” them in what will be the
policing model. The models, therefore, aim at being a quicker and
clearer ex post elaboration of the socio-legal notions presented in each
national case study. The models do not aim at being exhaustive, as they
only present certain events and focus on certain criminal law profiles.
The models are not even mutually exclusive; the characteristics at the
basis of one model might very well be found in another model.
However, each model is “driven” by different central concepts
(Structure, Enterprise, Visibility and Activity), which shape the overall
policing strategy of each country. They will, nevertheless, provide a
platform for a more refined comparative exercise. As said in the intro-
duction, each model represents a first stage of the comparative analysis.
At the next stage, this project will go beyond the description of the
systems and compare legal and social perspectives on the way organised
crime and mafias are policed and approached in these four countries
overall. The figure below summarises the building of the policing models
in this work (Fig. 2.2):
The four policing models are not empty containers looking at abstract
notions of mafias and organised crime. As said, they are presented on the
basis of a “ranking” within the OC–mafia spectrum attributed to each
model/country. The “ranking” on the spectrum derives from the “offi-
cial” relationship that each country has with the concepts of (Italian)
mafia and organised crime. This “official” relationship is necessarily the
starting point of the analysis and originates from an evaluation of the
literature and of the contemporary conceptualisation of organised crime/
mafia in each country.
As said in the introduction to this book, there is a bias to consider in
this research, which relates precisely to its starting point: the bias lies in
my being Italian and in my education on “organised crime”, which is
clearly based on “Italian mafias”. This bias essentially implies that the
The Four Case Studies and the Four Policing Models 49
Social conceptualisation
Institutional
Historical
events conceptualisation
Criminal
policy
Policing models
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References 59
the 1980s and the 1990s, when the relationship between the state and
Cosa Nostra became so confrontational that Cosa Nostra (under the
leadership of Totò Riina) moved to terror strategies while the State
enacted some of the policies that still today make the Antimafia. The
1990s also saw the rise of the national profile of the Calabrian ‘ndran-
gheta. These two periods are therefore the defining moments for the
crystallisation of the mafia concept in Italy and for the challenges of such
crystallisations as well.
To picture what was Italy like at the beginning of the 1990s is a very
hard task, as some of those events have not yet been fully disentangled.
The confusion of those years can be read throughout the lenses of three
major sets of events, which regarded both mafias and the political life of
the country: (1) the strategy of terror adopted by the clans belonging to
Sicilian Cosa Nostra between 1992 and 1993; (2) the investigation
known as “Mani Pulite” (Clean Hands) initiated by the Public
Prosecutors in Milan against corruption in the high spheres of Italian
politics; (3) a set of very profound political transformations, symbolically
known as the passage from the First to the Second Republic. This is in
line with Nando Dalla Chiesa’s (2010) theory of convergence of inter-
ests. Political events, legal choices and historical facts in Italy can be read
all combined when looking at the interests at stake from all parts. From
the convergence of political interests and mafia interests mafia power
grew while the functioning of the state was highly compromised. These
three sets of events, even though not exhaustively embracing all that
happened in those years, help to understand how and why this period is
the primary example to examine the convergence of interests between
mafia and the Italian state (Dalla Chiesa, 2010).
Historically, there are two events that have fundamentally pushed
Cosa Nostra in the spotlight and these events are the two murders of
1992 whose targets were Judge Giovanni Falcone and Judge Paolo
Borsellino, the first killed in an explosion on the motorway near
Capaci, Palermo, in Sicily in May 1992, the second killed in Palermo
Section 1 The Birth and Evolution of Italian Mafias 65
Cosa Nostra’s attacks can also be read in relation to the events within
the political and managerial class in the country at the time. In February
1992, a team of the Public Prosecutor in Milan officially started a series
of investigations under the name of “Mani Pulite”, Clean Hands, the
operation that started what in Italian history is known as the period of
“Tangentopoli” (Bribesville) (Della Seta and Salzano, 1993). The inves-
tigations uncovered networks between mafia clans and Masonic lodges,
games of power maintained through clientelism and political patronage
while the whole governing class was invested with suspicions and accu-
sations of bribery and corruption (Ganser, 2009; Dalla Chiesa, 2010). In
the meanwhile changes in the electoral system (from proportional to
majority-based) brought to new typologies of alliances among political
parties. This set of constitutional changes is commonly referred to as the
passage from the First to the Second Republic.
Political and social events – mafia and Antimafia-related – in the
1990s in Italy are notoriously intertwined in the minds of Italians. The
1990s represent the time in which the public formed a conscience of the
mafia as a criminal organisation essentially interested in finance and
politics and most of all not confined to Sicily alone (Santino, 1994). The
Antimafia Prosecutors in Caltanissetta, Sicily, in 2000,1 while delineat-
ing the facts of Tangentopoli and the attacks to Falcone and Borsellino
by Cosa Nostra as relevant to another case, declare how:
1
Operazione “Mandanti Occulti Bis”, Procura Della Repubblica presso il Tribunale di
Caltanissetta, R.G.N.R. DDA No. 4645/00, Richiesta di Archiviazione.
Section 1 The Birth and Evolution of Italian Mafias 67
Known today as the most powerful Italian mafia (Sergi and Lavorgna,
2016; DNA, 2016), the ‘ndrangheta is the mafia-type organised crime
group from the Calabrian region, at the toe of the Italian peninsula.
When we look at the ‘ndrangheta today, we necessarily have to refer to
the 1990s as the period when everything changed for the ‘ndrangheta
while staying nevertheless the same in Calabria. Like for Cosa Nostra
and Sicily, the sorts of the ‘ndrangheta in Calabria are not simply about
Calabria. Indeed, the changing face of Cosa Nostra after the maxi-trial of
the 1980s – after the heavy decimation of Cosa Nostra’s rankings by the
Antimafia authorities – and the evolution of drug trade and drug
consumption in Italy (Ruggiero and Vass, 1992; Becchi and Turvani,
1993) certainly facilitated the acquisition of prominent positions in
criminal markets by the neighbouring clans of Calabria when the autho-
rities were focused on Sicily (Ciconte, 2011). It would be, however,
narrow-minded to reduce the rising power of the ‘ndrangheta clans to
their position in the drug trade. Indeed, notwithstanding the late recog-
nition of this mafia in Italian criminal law – which happened only in
20102 – it is clear that the phenomenon not only was (and still is)
extremely entrenched in Calabria but also has been underestimated for a
long time (Paoli, 1994). It could be argued that while until the 1990s
the ‘ndrangheta phenomenon was perceived as a public order matter in
Calabria, in the 1980s and certainly in the 1990s it has started taking the
forms known today, by confirming its deep and symbiotic connection to
Calabria, as well as revealing its reach outside the region and outside the
country (Sergi and Lavorgna, 2016). Today there is a wealth of informa-
tion on the clans of the ‘ndrangheta, and there is consensus in
2
With the word ‘ndrangheta added to the offence of mafia membership in article 416-bis of the
Italian Criminal Code (law decree converted with Gazzetta Ufficiale 03.04.2010, No.78).
68 3 Case Study 1: Italy and the Structure Model
identifying the main drives that pushed this phenomenon in the spot-
light since the 1990s in a number of historical events. First, the violent
face of the clans, especially during the 1980s, the years of the kidnap-
pings for ransom. An uncertain number of people, between 190 and
230, were kidnapped all around Italy by Calabrian groups; this attracted
media’s and public attention and provoked a reaction from the state
(Sergi, 1991). Second, the difficulties of the Calabrian economy,
whereby a number of failed industrialisation processes made it extremely
profitable for certain individuals to access public funding while investing
in the legal economy (Forgione, 2008; Ciconte, 1996). Third, the
delocalisation of criminal activities in the North and Centre of Italy
(Ciconte, 2010; Sciarrone, 2014; Lavorgna, 2015) as well as abroad, in
Europe as well as in Australia or Canada or the USA (Sciarrone and
Storti, 2014; Sergi, 2015a; Calderoni et al., 2015; Sergi and Lavorgna,
2016), have prompted questions about the links between mafia move-
ments and Calabrian migration (Varese, 2011).
Moreover, during the course of the 1990s, Antimafia operations,
especially Operation Decollo I,3 Operation Porto4 and Operation
Olimpia,5 shed light, respectively, on the drug trafficking networks of
Calabrian clans, on the organisation of the clans for the exploitation of
local business ventures (such as the construction of the very important
port of Gioia Tauro) and on the internal functioning, recruitment and
roles of the clans as well as coordinating structures among them.
Since the 1990s the knowledge about what exactly is or makes the
‘ndrangheta has increased at the point of becoming predominant in both
public and institutional conceptualisations about mafias in Italy. Indeed,
whereas during the 1980s the Calabrian clans had made the national news
because of the kidnappings, we need to jump to the 2000s to find two very
visible and historically relevant events that brought the ‘ndrangheta in the
spotlight. First, the murder of Francesco Fortugno, Vice-President of the
Calabrian Regional Council in plain sight and daylight in Locri in October
3
Operation Decollo I, No. 1779-6541/2001 R.G.N.R. DDA.
4
Operation Porto, No. 35/96 and 84/97 R.G.N.R. DDA.
5
Operation Olimpia, No. 86/96 R.G. GIP DDA.
Section 1 The Birth and Evolution of Italian Mafias 69
2005. There is however still uncertainty on the role of the clans in this event,
according to prosecutors in Reggio Calabria. Second, the mass murder of six
people on the 15th August 2007 in Duisburg, Germany, which became part
of the famous Operation Crimine in 2010 tracking the Calabrian clans
outside Calabria. The Duisburg events on one side showed to Italian autho-
rities and the rest of the world the strength of the mafia clans outside national
boundaries, and on the other side also led the authorities to focus on certain
issues of policing mafia clans abroad (Casaburi, 2010; Ciconte, 2011).
Following these events, in 2008, the Parliamentary Antimafia Commission
released its first report on the ‘ndrangheta (Forgione, 2008: 24) and noticed
how, differently from Cosa Nostra and before the events in Duisburg:
[T]he ‘ndrangheta has always avoided to expose itself, always avoided the
spotlight and media attention. The ‘ndrine [family clans] have fought
bloody wars among each other, they have killed thousands of people, they
have intimidated with threats and attacks against local administrators, but
they never realised any action able to attract national or international
attention for long.
This is the secret of the ‘ndrangheta. It’s all in the tension between a
remote, rural and archaic here and a globalised, postmodern and techno-
logical there. It is all in the dialectic between the family dimension as basic
unit and the global diffusion of the operational network.
Indeed, both the media and state institutions, nationally and interna-
tionally, have now acknowledged the presence of the ‘ndrangheta in Italy
and abroad. This is also thanks to Operation Crimine,6 in 2010, which
has shed light on the international ramification of the clans. Indeed,
6
Operation Crimine, No.1389/2008 R.G.N.R. DDA.
70 3 Case Study 1: Italy and the Structure Model
the need to classify criminal groups as mafias in order to access the special
countering system and its benefits. These consequences also lead to an
overlapping of the conceptualisations of organised crime and mafias, with
a generalised use of the two terms interchangeably in common discourse.
It has proved problematic to agree on a working concept of organised
crime, separated from the one of mafias, during interviews in Italy.
Systemic problems in understanding and defining the characteristics of
the multifaceted criminal panorama in Italy emerge both from inter-
views and from monitoring of media and their language when they
“classify” mafia crimes or other types of organised crime (Di Ronco
and Lavorgna, 2016), as well as institutional reports in Italy (Sergi,
2015b). Generally speaking the differentiation between mafias groups/
members from other types of organised crime groups/members only
occurs when referring to legal definitions, as the law does differentiate
“simple” unlawful associations from mafia-type ones. Nevertheless, there
is a widespread – yet not always clearly expressed – awareness that the
nature of organised crime in the country is much more varied than the
one encapsulated both in criminal law and in social perceptions. Indeed
the conceptualisations of mafias and organised crime include hybrid
forms of criminality, such as migrating mafia groups – that is, mafia
groups establishing themselves outside their traditional territories, thus
operating differently – and mixed groups – that is, criminal networks,
Italian as well as foreign, that operate as autonomous entities together
with traditional mafias or among themselves (Lavorgna and Sergi, 2014).
These two categories, which at times might also overlap too, are certainly
problematic for a legal perspective, but mostly for a conceptualisation of
the phenomena they refer to.
In particular, when it comes to the first hybrid typology – migrating
mafia groups – the literature addresses this issue also outside of Italy, see,
for example, the case of the ‘ndrangheta in Australia or Cosa Nostra in
the USA in this book. Certainly, when it comes to conceptualising
Italian mafias and their movements, the first thing is to understand
where is the point of origin of groups, in line or in contrast with the
established perception related to the South of Italy. Indeed, there is
ambiguity in the conceptualisation of mafias: on one side the concept
of mafias in “traditional” settings is changing, on the other side, a
72 3 Case Study 1: Italy and the Structure Model
The ‘ndrangheta is the only criminal group that right now has at least two
centres of power, one in Reggio Calabria, one in Milan. It should not
surprise that the presence of the ‘ndrangheta in the North of Italy has been
long denied; whenever mafias do not kill, people and authorities assume
that there is no mafia at all.
The denial reiterated for years the authorities in the North of Italy
together with the incapacity of many Italian regions – historically
mafia-free – to recognise first the contagion and afterwards the auton-
omy of ‘ndrangheta clans in their territories, is based on the myth that
mafias belong to the South as offspring of poverty and product of
Southern cultures. This translates, as we will see later in this chapter,
in a very clear difficulty from the courts in the Centre and North of the
country, to apply the legislation against mafia membership outside of
traditional mafia territories. Migrating/migrated mafia groups pose
indeed a number of interpretative problems also from a legal perspec-
tive. Conceptually, scholars have been studying mafia movements in
The Hybridisation of Organised Crime and the Different Dimensions . . . 73
Albanian groups, for example, they are everywhere in the country and they
often have equal standing to our own in some areas; Chinese groups are
also big on drugs, even though their clientele, so to say, tends to remain
limited to Asian migrants; then you have groups from North-Africa as
well, they are mostly involved in human trafficking and smuggling of
migrants, often with the cooperation of Italian criminals.
7
Operation Aemilia, No. 20604/10 R.G.N.R. DDA Bologna, 17375/11 R.G.N.R. GIP.
8
Operazione Mondo di Mezzo, No. 30546/10 R.G.N.R. Roma.
The Hybridisation of Organised Crime and the Different Dimensions . . . 75
with mafia clans in the Capital City. The network of Mafia Capitale is
peculiar in the way they conduct business as well as in their way of
“being” a mafia group (Prefetto di Roma, 2015). As noticed by the
Antimafia prosecutors in Rome9:
9
Operazione Mondo di Mezzo, No. 30546/10 R.G.N.R. Roma, p. 31.
10
Corte di Cassazione, sez. VI pen. 10 March 2015 [dep. 9 June 2015], no. 24535, p. 21.
76 3 Case Study 1: Italy and the Structure Model
11
Article 416-bis (Italian) Criminal Code. Mafia-type unlawful association.
1. Any person participating in a Mafia-type unlawful association including three or more persons
shall be liable to imprisonment for 5–10 years.
2. Those persons promoting, directing or organising the said association shall be liable, for this
sole offence, to imprisonment for 7–12 years.
3. Mafia-type unlawful association is said to exist when the participants take advantage of the
intimidating power of the association and of the resulting conditions of submission and silence
to commit criminal offences, to manage or in any way control, either directly or indirectly,
economic activities, concessions, authorizations, public contracts and services, or to obtain
unlawful profits or advantages for themselves or for any other persons, or with a view to prevent
or limit the freedom to vote, or to get votes for themselves or for other persons on the occasion
of an election.
4. Should the association be of the armed type, the punishment shall be imprisonment for 7–15
years pursuant to paragraph 1 and imprisonment for 10–24 years pursuant to paragraph 2.
5. An association is said to be of the armed type when the participants have firearms or explosives
at their disposal, even if hidden or deposited elsewhere, to achieve the objectives of the said
association.
6. If the economic activities whose control the participants in the said association aim at achieving
or maintaining are funded, totally or partially, by the price, the products or the proceeds of
criminal offences, the punishments referred in the above paragraphs shall be increased by one-
third to one-half.
7. The offender shall always be liable to confiscation of the things that were used or meant to be
used to commit the offence and of the things that represent the price, the product or the
proceeds of such offence or the use thereof.
8. The provisions of this article shall also apply to the Camorra, the ‘ndrangheta and to any other
associations, whatever their local titles, seeking to achieve objectives that correspond to those of
Mafia-type unlawful association by taking advantage of the intimidating power of the
association.
80 3 Case Study 1: Italy and the Structure Model
The fact that you can target the association gives you the idea of the
strength, the power of individuals, it’s something more, even if sometimes
you can have the same results at trials by prosecuting and charging the
single criminal activity.
The courts often revisit the limits and connotations of article 416-bis,
especially with reference to the application of this provision outside of the
“traditional” mafia territories. There is a sociological dimension to article
416-bis, which from the beginning, has limited the application of the law to
places where it was easier to prove the existence of a criminal organisation
detaining control of the territory (Dalla Chiesa, 2010). However, neither the
existence of a “formal” organisation nor the “control of the territory” are
mentioned in the criminal norm, even though they have heavily impacted
upon its application and on the definition of what the mafia method actually
is. In the sentence for Operation Cerberus12 in 2014, the Supreme Court has
clarified that what differentiates article 416 (unlawful association) and article
416-bis (mafia-type unlawful association) is the method. The mafia method is
12
Corte di Cassazione, sez. VI, no. 18459 – 22 January 2015.
Section 2 Criminalising Mafias: Tolerability, Mafia Method . . . 81
The use of the intimidatory power that originates from the very existence
of the organisation paired with a diffuse subjection in the social environ-
ment and therefore a general condition of omertà. [ . . . ] The condition of
omertà has to be essentially connected to the intimidatory power of the
organisation. If it is dependent on other factors then we have a simple
unlawful association offence.
Interviewees in Italy, however, also share concerns about the use of the
offence of mafia-type membership. A Judge in Palermo notices how the
offence is sometimes “abused [ . . . ] a double-edged sword, used as
skeleton key to start interceptions or to obtain pre-trial detention
orders”. And he adds: “when you get to trial it risks becoming a
problem, as it is difficult to prove – especially when you do not have a
13
Corte di Cassazione, Sez. VI, no. 1612 – 11 January 2000, Ferone, Rv. 216632.
82 3 Case Study 1: Italy and the Structure Model
14
Operazione Mondo di Mezzo, No. 30546/10 R.G.N.R. Roma, p. 32.
Section 2 Criminalising Mafias: Tolerability, Mafia Method . . . 83
shaped the law as founding element of mafias’ power but not as legal
requirement. The mafia offence requires the existence of the mafia
method (intimidation, violence, subjection and omertà) used for
financial and political gains. The courts, in practice, attempt to
prove the financial gain in those cases where the territory has not
historically been mafia-infiltrated: the mafia behaviour is often not
even seen or recognised as such.
Even though the last paragraph of article 416-bis contains a clause
to apply the norm to “any other associations, whatever their local
title” – as long as they use the mafia method of intimidation, favour
omertà and exploit economic activities – the applicability of this law
outside of the “traditional” territories is still problematic, notwith-
standing many successful cases, such as the famous trial for
Operation Infinito15 in 2015 against ‘ndrangheta clans historically
present in the area around Milan. For example, the Tribunal of
Genova, which rejected the mafia membership offence for indivi-
duals belonging to the ‘ndrangheta in the Liguria region after
Operation Maglio 3, finds16
The impossibility to affirm, beyond reasonable doubt, that the fact that
[the defendants’] are ‘ndrangheta members implies [their] they “behave”
like ‘ndrangheta members and also that the ‘ndrangheta that today is in
Liguria has the same connotations of the ‘ndrangheta in Calabria for the
purposes of article 416-bis.
The fact that in a territory there are ‘ndrangheta members does not
automatically imply that there is also the ‘ndrangheta as mafia-type
15
Corte di Cassazione, sez. II, no. 34147 – 21–30 April 2015.
16
Tribunale di Genova, no. 2268/10 R.G.N.R., no. 4432/12 R.G. GIP, p. 6.
17
Tribunale di Genova, no. 2268/10 R.G.N.R., no. 4432/12 R.G. GIP, p. 338.
84 3 Case Study 1: Italy and the Structure Model
There is a clear difficulty to understand that you do not need to look for the
mafia method in individual behaviours to affirm the existence of the mafia
organisation. In Liguria the ‘ndrangheta does not need to behave with the
typical mafia method because it lives on reputation, reputation that comes
from elsewhere; they act with similar aims, but with different methods that
however all come from being and accepting the criminal association.
18
Corte di Cassazione, s.u. 5.10.1994, no.16 Demitry.
19
Corte di Cassazione, s.u. 27.09.1995 no.30 Mannino; Corte di Cassazione, s.u. 30.10.2002
no.22327 Carnevale; Corte di Cassazione, s.u. 12.07.2005 no. 33748 Mannino.
20
Corte di Cassazione, 14.07.1987, Cillari, no. 8092.
21
Corte di Cassazione, s. VI, 05/05/2009, Bono et al, no. 24469.
22
Tribunale di Catania, Sezione G.I.P., Proc. Pen. No. 4888/07 R.G.N.R. – no. 3496/08 R.G.
GIP, p. 109.
23
European Court of Human Rights, S.IV, Contrada v. Italy, 14.04.2015, no. 66655/13.
24
Corte Costituzionale, no. 0048/2015, G.U. 01.04.2015.
Mafia politics: Trafficking Favours, Corruption and External Support 87
particular, say all three courts, the distinction between the intraneous and the
extraneous to a mafia organisation needs to be specific because each position
brings different juridical responses (in terms of applicability of security
measures and arrest conditions, for example). The notion at the basis of
this distinction, as reminded repeatedly by the Supreme Court,25 is that the
extraneous is only he who, without being part of the criminal organisation and
therefore without showing any affectio societatis, does causally offer efficient,
aware and voluntary contribution to preserve and strengthen the operational
abilities of the crime syndicate. However, as recently affirmed by the Supreme
Court,26 this distinction is indeed quite “nebulous” because of the not so
clear-cut nature of mafia organisations >today, also with the reference to the
“Mafia Capitale” case in Rome. Effectively, the offence of external participa-
tion could today be subsumed within the criminal association itself. As
concluded by the Tribunal of Catania27:
What would be today the reason not to consider as mafia associate some-
one who, even if not being formally affiliated to the mafia group, in
substance behaves as if he was, gaining benefits and, over the long period
of time in which he offers his services, does strengthen and contribute to
the mafia group itself?.
25
Corte di Cassazione, s.u 12.07.2005, no. 33748, and Corte di Cassazione, s.VI, 18.06.2014
no. 33885.
26
Corte di Cassazione, s.u 21.04.2015, no. 34147.
27
Tribunale di Catania, Sezione G.I.P., Proc. Pen. No. 4888/07 R.G.N.R. – no. 3496/08 R.G.
GIP, p. 117.
88 3 Case Study 1: Italy and the Structure Model
I am not optimistic about this really. The dissolution procedure is most of the
time unable to fix the problem it wishes to target. Through the coerced
administration and the inquiry that follows, we might get some insight in
what are the weak areas of the local administration. However, it is often the case
that after the intervention of the state, the city or town goes back to what it was
before, sign that the issue, at least down here, is cultural and not just structural.
crime activities, have been object of specific analysis from the Banca
d’Italia since the post-war period (Pinotti, 2012). The focus of financial
investigations on the economic harm of organised crime, and especially
mafias, is mainly linked to their ability to exploit public and also
European funds (Sergi and South, 2016). A researcher at the Banca
d’Italia in Calabria confirms how:
The link with European funds is certainly relevant, but do not forget that
we know more about European funds because on those funds there are
more controls, and that these funds are more difficult to spend; colluded
or weak administration struggle to activate the procedures and stick with
them within the deadlines. [ . . . ] With national public funds, procedures,
controls and deadlines are different, there are no real deadlines, you
cannot lose public funds and there are less controls. I believe that the
link between organised crime and national public funds is probably even
more relevant, this is where you are more likely to find systemic
corruption.
Next to the economic costs and the harms deriving from activities of criminal
groups, it is also the wealth of criminal groups that has worried Antimafia
investigators and prosecutors over the years. This concern is linked not just to
the necessity to take back the proceeds of crime, because crime does not
(should not) pay, but also to weaken the power associated to (criminal)
economic wealth; this means that money-laundering legislation, for example,
needs to be both repressive and preventative. Indeed as noticed by a Colonel
of the Guardia di Finanza (Fiscal Police): “with the offence of money
laundering what we protect is public safety and public order; the value
protected by the preventative anti-money laundering system instead, based
on the cooperation of financial operators, is the health of financial markets”.
When it comes to confiscation, Italy has three types of confiscation
linked to mafia proceedings. Confiscation as security measure (article 240
Criminal Code); confiscation as punitive measure – contained in article
416-bis of the Criminal code (the mafia membership offence) and in
12-sexies law 1992, no. 356 and confiscation as prevention measure
(within law 159/2011, the so-called Antimafia Code). In particular,
Antimafia confiscations are known as “confisca allargata” (inflated
90 3 Case Study 1: Italy and the Structure Model
Years ago, at the entrance or exit of every village, mafia families used to
build their own palaces. Today, thanks to the Antimafia legislations and
the possibility, for example, to confiscate assets also to the relatives of a
dead mafia member, this arrogance, this hubris, does not happen anymore.
Social prestige is what makes relationships endure here; it’s about respect,
it’s about what they display and how they display it and about what others
know they can do or display. If you take away their prestige at the local
level, together with their money, in their territories, where they want and
need to stay, that is where you hurt them.
OC & Mafia
Criminal law & prosecution
overlap
The mafia
method
The social dimension
OC as
socially
Association Targeting money and
embedded Indirect provisions
and external power
structure & participation
dynamism
References
Arlacchi P and Ryle MH. (1988) Mafia Business: The Mafia Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Becchi A and Turvani M. (1993) Proibito? Il mercato mondiale della droga,
Milano: Donzelli Editore.
96 3 Case Study 1: Italy and the Structure Model
Dickie J. (2007) Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia, London: Hodder.
Dickie J. (2011) Blood Brotherhoods: The Rise of the Italian Mafias, London:
Sceptre.
Dickie J. (2013) Mafia Republic: Italy’s Criminal Curse. Cosa Nostra, ‘ndran-
gheta and camorra from 1946 to the Present, London: Sceptre.
DNA. (2012) Relazione annuale sulle attività svolte dal Procuratore Nazionale
Antimafia e dalla Direzione Nazionale Antimafia nonché sulle dinamiche e
strategie della criminalità organizzata di tipo mafioso. Rome: Direzione
Nazionale Antimafia.
DNA. (2016) Relazione annuale sulle attività svolte dal Procuratore nazionale
e dalla Direzione nazionale antimafia e antiterrorismo nonché sulle dinamiche
e strategie della criminalità organizzata di tipo mafioso nel periodo 1° luglio 2014
– 30 giugno 2015. Roma: Direzione Nazionale Antimafia e Antiterrorismo.
Falcone G, Padovani M and Farrelly E. (1993) Men of Honour: The Truth
About the Mafia, London: Warner.
Farrell J. (1997) Understanding the Mafia, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Fiandaca G and Costantino S. (1990) La mafia degli anni’80. Il fenomeno
mafioso tra vecchi e nuovi paradigmi. Sociologia del diritto 3.
Finkelstein MS. (1998) Separatism, the Allies and the Mafia: The Struggle for
Sicilian Independence, 1943–1948, Bethlehem, [Pa.] London: Lehigh
University Press;Associated University Presses.
Forgione F. (2008) Relazione Annuale sulla ‘Ndrangheta. In: Commissione
Parlamentare d’inchiesta sul fenomeno della mafia e sulle altre associazioni
criminali as (ed). Roma.
Gambetta D. (1993) The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection,
Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press.
Ganser D. (2009) Beyond democratic checks and balances: The ‘propaganda
due’ masonic lodge and the CIA in Italy’s first republic. In: Wilson E and
Lidnsey T (eds) Government of the Shadows: Parapolitics and Criminal
Sovereignty. New York: Pluto Press.
Hess H and Osers E. (1973) Mafia and Mafiosi: The Structure of Power,
Farnborough: D.C. Heath.
Intilla G. (2011) Lo stragismo mafioso e la logica del doppio stato. In:
Cardella C, Intilla G, Macaluso M, et al. (eds) Criminal Network.
Politica, amministrazione, ambiente e mercato nelle trame della mafia.
Milano: Franco Angeli.
La Spina A. (2014) The fight against the Italian mafia. In: Paoli L (ed). New
York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
98 3 Case Study 1: Italy and the Structure Model
main difference is, obviously, that Italy was fighting an enemy from within,
while the US fight against mafias was – at the beginning at least – perceived
as a fight against an alien “other”. It does not surprise, therefore, that in the
US the fight against organised crime has become most effective as soon as it
was supported by politics. The political dimension of the fight against
mafias has resulted in a conceptualisation of organised crime as ethnic-
based criminal conspiracies, which can prove problematic to criminalise
within the rule of law of a common law country.
From a perspective rooted purely in criminal policy and historical policy
discourse, the US, more than Italy, is the birthplace of “the Mafia” – with
the capital M and the determinative article “the” – intended as the family-
run criminal syndicates coming from Sicily that control various illicit
markets and spread its tentacles across all states and main cities in the US.
The peculiar history surrounding the fight against the Mafia, “La”
Cosa Nostra, in the US – which is object of seminal books on organised
crime history and control – swings between the problematic conceptua-
lisation of “Mafia” as product of immigrant – alien – communities (i.e.
Sicilians or Italians more broadly) and the following politicisation of this
conceptualisation within the specific frame of a securitisation process.
The securitisation process of organised crime in the US has been the
unavoidable offspring of the moral panic surrounding Sicilian/Italian
Cosa Nostra in the country notwithstanding the impact of 9/11 and the
changes of political concerns thereafter. As argued in classic studies on
securitisation, any securitisation process is directly linked to an intention
to justify special measures (Buzan, 1983; Wæver, 1995), in this case the
fight of an “evil” that does not come from within but is nevertheless inside
society. Moreover, the politicisation and securitisation of organised
crime in the country has been fed and reinforced through popular
culture (Stritzel, 2012). Various drives have eventually contributed to
create what Bigo (2008: 7) would call a “transnational truth” of what
first class organised crime is and how it manifests, forever linking both
mass perceptions as well as institutional control strategies to a crystallised
vision of the Sicilian Mafia in the US.
In a discourse on the evolution of the concept of organised crime in
the US, the main historical focus is necessarily on the peculiar saga of
Cosa Nostra, especially in New York and Chicago, from its first
Section 1 The Birth of the Mafia Conspiracy 103
manifestations to the moral panic and the trials based on the RICO Act.
A secondary, but equally important focus is on the (further) securitisa-
tion of organised crime as threat to security and borders post 9/11, as a
product of the “war on terror”.
Crucially, the ethnic connotation of earlier conceptualisations of
organised crime in the US has never left the institutional perception of
the phenomenon. Since 2001, when representations of immigrants as
threats to the sovereignty and identity of national states have been the
most studied case of securitisation discourses (Bigo, 2012; Bigo, 2001;
McDonald, 2008), the initial ethnic connotation of the Mafia, again
with capital M, in the US, has resurfaced and migrated into new hybrid
concepts such as transnational organised crime – as threat to the country
and cross-border security menace. The seed of securitisation in the
discourse around Cosa Nostra and the Mafia in the USA was planted
since the beginning. Already Donald P. Cressey (1969: 14) in his
uniquely influential “Theft of a Nation” wrote:
The history and vicissitudes of the Sicilian Mafia, also known as LCN (La
Cosa Nostra), in the US have been object of distinct and prolific literature
(Woodiwiss, 1990; Jacobs et al., 1994; Critchley, 2009). Precisely because
104 4 Case Study 2: United States of America and the Enterprise Model
popular culture, and especially the Hollywood industry, has often bor-
rowed images, facts and stories from law enforcement and policy-makers to
ensure a sense of authenticity in the various plots (Stritzel, 2012), the line
between myth and reality on the Mafia in the US has always been a fine one
when it comes to perceptions.
For a timeline of events functional to an analysis of the evolution of
the mafia conceptualisation in the US, we need to rely on the author-
itative work of scholars in this specific field of enquiry. In literature,
there are four moments – on which scholars agree upon (Albanese, 1996;
Woodiwiss, 2015b) – that make the discovery and/or the making of (La)
Cosa Nostra as the number one enemy of the US.
As of today, the FBI1 estimates that in the US there are affiliates of all
Italian mafias (so not only Cosa Nostra): “there are more than 3,000
1
FBI – Italian Organized Crime – https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/organizedcrime/ita
lian_mafia.
Section 1 The Birth of the Mafia Conspiracy 107
research into organised crime of late I think we just have to look to one date:
9/11. Everything changed on that day. Terrorism and terrorism intelligence
became the new game in town”.
In 2008, 23rd of April, US Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey
addressed the audience of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington, D.C. on the threat of international organised
crime.2 The Attorney General noticed how the last Organised Crime
Council had met in 1993 and how “it seems that there is a widespread
belief around the country that organised crime is no longer a serious
threat”. This is obviously not the case, continued Mr Mukasey, which is
why “earlier this year [2008], the Organised Crime Council met for the
first time in 15 years. It did so because the United States faces a new and
more modern threat, from international organised crime”. International
organised crime, continues the Attorney General, “poses a greater chal-
lenge to law enforcement than did the traditional Mafia, in many
respects”. Such a statement is followed by a description on the geogra-
phical sources of the “new” threat and its concerning degrees of
sophistication.
The Attorney General’s remarks in 2008 echo various other state-
ments from security actors in relation to the growing threat of transna-
tional or international organised crime in a growingly insecure world
after 9/11. In other words, the impact of the terrorist attacks of 11th
September 2001 has profoundly changed the institutional rhetoric of
organised crime in the US. After 9/11 the process of securitisation of
organised crime in the US reaches its peak, by introducing the language
of security to alert of new, more modern, greater threats to the country
from international criminal networks (Stritzel, 2014; Woodiwiss and
Hobbs, 2009). The language of security actors’ speeches on organised
crime and its threats to national safety since 2001 is, however, still
dependent on the construction of organised crime and the Mafia in
the second half of the twentieth century. As noticed (Stritzel, 2012: 563)
2
Remarks Prepared for Delivery by Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey on International
Organized Crime at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington D.C., 23
April 2008, available at: https://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2008/ag-speech-080425.
html.
Section 1 The Birth of the Mafia Conspiracy 109
“one could argue that the rather excessive references to the gangster story
genre actually replaced the provision of proof and/or reasons in secur-
itizing moves”. What Stritzel means here is that the politicisation of the
fight against organised crime – the Mafia – since the 1950s in the US has
served very well speech acts of security post 2001. In fact, each securitis-
ing speech act needs a sequence of claims, warnings and demands made
by an authoritative security actor, supported by the propositional content
of proof and/or reasons for the claim/warning (Vuori, 2008). The
process of securitisation of organised crime in the US, and the subse-
quent re-branding of “international” or “transnational” organised crime
are direct products of the political interest and strategic “war on mafia”
of the previous decades, following the events of 9/11.
As reminded by Prof. James B. Jacobs in a recent interview
(Woodiwiss, 2015a: 90) since 9/11, “the FBI’s main priority has quite
rightly shifted to counter-terrorism. The Cosa Nostra organised crime
families have been very significantly weakened and, in some cities,
eliminated, but organised crime prosecutions continue”. The events of
9/11, therefore, even though they marked a global shift towards counter-
terrorism, also affected the conceptualisation of organised crime, in the
US as elsewhere. International – or global, or transnational – organised
crime, in the US before anywhere else, became one of the “legitimately
recognised threats” within “the field of (in)security” (Bigo, 2008: 25).
The classification of international organised crime as a national secur-
ity threat in the US comes at the expenses of the mafia conspiracy
paradigm, which had defined a classification of organised crime as public
security threat (threat to people, order and properties) (Finklea, 2010). In
order to give credibility to the newly feared challenges posed by inter-
national/transnational organised crime groups, security speeches simul-
taneously discard “traditional mafias” while reiterating the reach of
global criminal networks both in terms of geography and in terms of
their hybridisation with other criminal actors (such as terrorists). This is
needed because after 9/11 “there has been a shift in law enforcement
attention and resources more toward counter terrorism-related activities
and away from traditional crime fighting activities – including the
investigation of organised crime” (Bjelopera and Finklea, 2012: 1).
“To be taken seriously by law enforcement and politicians therefore,
110 4 Case Study 2: United States of America and the Enterprise Model
We have more than 120 prosecutors, and the FBI has more than 500
agents and analysts, dedicated to fighting organized crime. These profes-
sionals are skilled in using techniques originally developed to fight LCN
and other domestic threats. We’re going to capitalize on that expertise in
our global fight.
Obviously today, since even before 9/11, late 1990s, the latest organised
crime threat became the terrorist groups [ . . . ] In this country it took us a
long time to treat Al Qaeda and the other groups as international orga-
nised criminal enterprises as opposed to isolated terrorists or regional
3
Statement of Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer Before the Senate Judiciary
Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, Washington, D.C. – Tuesday, 1 November, 2011.
Available at: http://www.frank-cs.org/cms/pdfs/DOJ/DOJ_Breuer_TOC.pdf.
4
Remarks Prepared for Delivery by Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey on International
Organized Crime at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C.-
Wednesday, 23 April, 2008. Available at: https://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2008/ag-
speech-080425.html.
Ethnic Ties Crystallised with Entrepreneurial Skills . . . 115
groups. So, one of the things you would see today is the use of the Civil
RICO statute to essentially target support and financing of international
organised crime and terrorist enterprises.
Perhaps we are victims of our own success, because it seems that there is a
widespread belief around the country that organized crime is no longer a
serious threat. Most Americans think of organised crime only as a part of
America’s past; its modern role merely the subject of popular movies or
television dramas.
5
Remarks Prepared for Delivery by Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey on International
Organized Crime at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C.-
Wednesday, 23 April, 2008. Available at: https://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2008/ag-
speech-080425.html.
Section 2 Criminalising “the Mafia”, “La Cosa Nostra”, “the Mob” . . . 119
(FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have been the most active
institutions in the fight against organised crime. After the Kefauver
Committee in 1950 and the news of a mafia meeting in Appalachin in
1957 (Albanese, 1996; Albanese, 2014), after Joe Valachi’s testimony in
1963 and after the President’s Crime Commission Task Force on
Organized Crime issued its report in 1967 – followed by Theft of a
Nation by Donald Cressey in 1969 – the alarm against organised crime
in the country was tangible and became a political matter for federal
institutions to deal with. Section 1 of Public Law 91-4526 sets forth the
legislative intent of the RICO Act:
6
Public Law No. 91-452, § 1, 84 Stat. 922 (1970) (Congressional Statement of Findings and
Purpose).
120 4 Case Study 2: United States of America and the Enterprise Model
was largely the result of one person, Blakey,7 who wrote the statute. When
Blakey wrote the statute the people here, who grew up in a common law
system thinking that you prosecute based on individuals and crimes,
resisted his interpretation of RICO, they said it couldn’t have meant
what he says it means. It took a while to get it adopted in the mind-set.
7
He is referring to Professor George Robert Blakey (born 7 January 1936, in Burlington, North
Carolina), an American attorney and law professor who drafted the RICO Act and wrote on the
subject of enterprise criminality during his time at Notre Dame and Cornell Law Schools.
RICO: Enterprise and Pattern of Racketeering Activity 121
Once you get to complex conspiracies you get an end point when con-
spiracies occur over a period of time but you cannot tell whether there are
breaks or not, what the agreement precisely is or whether an old con-
spiracy ends a new one begins or there are lots of crime which appear
connected but you cannot prove the connection.
8
S. 2187, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 111 Cong. Rec. 14,680 (1965)
9
Criminal Laws and Procedures, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and
Procedures of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 89th Cong., 2d Sess. 32 (1966), at 32–37.
122 4 Case Study 2: United States of America and the Enterprise Model
10
18 U.S. Code § 1961 – Definitions – s.4
11
United States v. Turkette – Supreme Court of the United States, 1981-452 U.S. 576.
12
United States v. Bledsoe – Supreme Court of the United States, 674 F.2d 647 (8th Cir. 1982).
RICO: Enterprise and Pattern of Racketeering Activity 123
within 10 years from the first to the last. The pattern of racketeering
activity is a series of criminal acts and it has to be connected to the
existing enterprise. The “enterprise” engages in a “pattern of racketeering
activity”; this means that the existence of the enterprise is proved
separately from the criminal activities constituting the pattern and that
proof of one does not prove the other.13 There needs to be continuity in
the pattern plus relationship of the identified pattern with the enterprise
(Sergi, 2015). This has been stated by the Supreme Court in Turkette,
which established that an enterprise needs to exhibit a common or
shared purpose among associates, must function as a continuing union
and must also have an ascertainable structure, distinct but related to the
pattern of racketeering activity.14 As the “target of RICO is not sporadic
activity but sophisticated organised crime” – as shared at the NYC Police
Department – and organised crime keeps by definition a low-profile in
society (Low, 2003) it makes sense that RICO asks to look “at the real
story”.
That RICO was an arsenal against “the Mafia”, intended as hierarchical
organisation made of “crime families” united by a Commission, seems to
be pacific in the literature (Blakey, 1990; Goldsmith, 1988; Lynch, 1987;
Jacobs et al., 1994). Similarly, pacific is that the statute was not solely used
to fight “the Mob” and was considerably expanded – not without judicial
conflicts – much beyond traditional organised crime (Low, 2003).
Interestingly, the expansion of RICO beyond organised crime also comes
with a reduction of its use against organised crime when other routes can be
pursued. As noticed in an interview in the Criminal Justice Division of the
State of New York’s Office of the Attorney General:
13
See, among others, United States v. Anderson, 626 F.2d 1358, 1365 (8th Cir.1980) and again
Turkette.
14
In United States v. Boyle, No. 07–1309 556 U. S. (2009), the Court stated that no reference to
“ascertainable structure” is mandated and that this precise language is not required for the jury.
124 4 Case Study 2: United States of America and the Enterprise Model
intimidation?” And we would often say “No RICO”. And I think what
happened was that traditional organised crime started to fade and what we
were left with was a lot of drug trafficking and the penalties were really
severe and they were federal charges already. We didn’t need RICO;
moreover RICO charges have to be approved in Washington, they go
under lots of scrutiny, what you have to do bureaucratically to get it . . . is
it going to make a change in the penalty or is it going to complicate you
can achieve at trial ? . . . As we say, the juice has to be worth the squeeze.
15
Public Law No. 91-452, § 1, 84 Stat. 922 (1970) (Congressional Statement of Findings and Purpose).
The Hybrid Nature of RICO and the Versatility . . . 125
16
National Organization for Women, Inc. v. Scheidler, 510 U.S. 249 (1994).
126 4 Case Study 2: United States of America and the Enterprise Model
The civil provisions of the RICO statute have proven to be very powerful
weapons, especially the consent decrees.19 They are often more productive
because they attack the entire corrupt entity instead of imprisoning
individuals, who can easily be replaced with other organized crime mem-
bers or associates. [ . . . ] A civil RICO complaint can restore democracy to
a corrupt union by imposing civil remedies designed to eliminate such
corruption and deter its re-emergence.
17
Sedima S.P.R.L. v. Imrex Co., Inc. – Supreme Court of the United States, 1985 – 473 U.S. 479.
18
FBI – Italian Organized Crime – https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/organizedcrime/
italian_mafia.
19
The DOJ’s Civil RICO Manual for Federal Attorneys (DOJ, 2007:157) defines a consent
decree as “a voluntary agreement, subject to the court’s approval, entered into by consent of the
parties to a lawsuit to resolve a lawsuit”. “The parties waive their right to litigate the issues
involved in the case and thus save themselves the time, expense, and inevitable risk of litigation”
United States v. Armour & Co., 402 U.S. 673, 681 (1971).
The Hybrid Nature of RICO and the Versatility . . . 127
When the pattern of criminal activity becomes obvious – you have frauds
or business crimes – then it is only the proof of the relationship between
the pattern and an existing enterprise that will determine if you can use
RICO; basically you need to establish whether the enterprise is the victim
or the vehicle of the pattern and whether it is still distinct from the
individuals.
20
United States v. Weisman, 624 F.2d 1118 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 871 (1980).
128 4 Case Study 2: United States of America and the Enterprise Model
It is a fact that in a certain way the whole is greater than the sum of the
parts [ . . . ], therefore looking at the enterprise that produces the criminal
activity is the starting point of the response. [ . . . ] This is because of the
perception of organised crime in this country. We didn’t know much but
the fact that it was a crime-producing machine and we wanted to get to
that machine and all it did, money, power, drugs.
As for the first theme, the White House’s strategy (2011: 3) against
transnational organised crime quite clearly defines first the difference
between traditional and non-traditional organised crime, and second the
rise of transnational “enterprises” of crime connected to cybercrime:
21
Interviewees at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office did not consent to be recorded. Notes
have been taken during the interviews and integrated afterwards for clarity and accuracy. Direct
quotes are therefore not possible unless they have been annotated as such.
130 4 Case Study 2: United States of America and the Enterprise Model
The reasons for the success of the enterprise paradigm in the way
described so far are also the reasons for its difficulties with the changing
nature of crimes, which have been defined “non-traditional”. The his-
torical characterisation of organised crime as criminal enterprises clashes
with both the needs of investigation bureaus in cases of organised
cybercrime and the issues in terms of jurisdiction and competence of
law enforcement. Claiming jurisdiction in low-level crimes committed
in a pattern and with an element of cyber is of particular concern in
Manhattan, as agreed in the DA’s Major Economic Crimes Bureau;
jurisdiction and competence can be claimed when either the victim or
the perpetrator of the crimes are in the district or when in the “foresee-
able future” some aspect of the online activity will “land” in the district.
On the other side of the spectrum, the question of extraterritoriality in
RICO has been of interest for the courts dealing with transnational criminal
groups. RICO has been successfully used in cases involving criminal activ-
ities and/or defendants located outside the United States based on the idea
“that because a number of RICO’s predicate acts possess an extraterritorial
reach, RICO itself possesses an extraterritorial reach”.22 RICO’s extraterri-
toriality is still often debated, especially in civil RICO claims. Various courts
have often considered RICO inapplicable unless the “enterprise” was a
domestic one and/or carried out considerable part of its decision-making
process in the US.23 It has been argued (Ott, 2012: 17) that the reasoning of
civil cases in which the courts rejected RICO’s extraterritoriality is untenable
when it comes to transnational organised crime, because:
22
Morrison v. Nat’l Australia Bank Ltd., 130 S. Ct. 2869, 2878 (2010)
23
See, for example, Norex Petroleum Ltd. v. Access Indus, Inc., 622 F.3d 148 (2d Cir. 2010),
amended by 631 F.3d. 29, 31–33 (2d Cir. 2010); European Community v. RJR Nabisco, Inc., 2011
WL 843957, (E.D.N.Y. 8 March 2011); Cedeño v. Intech Group, Inc., 733 F. Supp. 2d 471, 472
(S.D.N.Y. 2010), which all rejected RICO’s extraterritoriality.
The US Enterprise Policing Model 131
US Enterprise Model
Traditional
OC: LCN is
an ethni
criminal Federal investigations
enterprise
seeking
money and
power
FBI & DOJ RICO
Non-
traditional Criminal enterprise Civil provisions and
OC: TOC and pattern of other applications
Multi-
groups are a racketeering beyond economic
agency
threat to activities motives
actions
national
security
The way “the Mafia” (again, with capital M to indicate the organisation,
the syndicate, the conspiracy among the families) has been conceptua-
lised is still very influential both for public perceptions of contemporary
organised crime and in the Enterprise model. It is very telling that a story
from the FBI in 2009,24 titled “Move Over, Mafia. The New Face of
Organized Crime”, opens by saying:
FBI Stories 13/02/2009 – Move Over, Mafia. The New Face of Organized Crime, https://
24
www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2009/february/orgcrime_021309.
The US Enterprise Policing Model 133
When you hear the words “organized crime,” the first thing that comes to
mind is probably the Mafia and its five major crime families in New York City.
But have you ever heard of the notorious Thief-in-Law Vyacheslav Ivankov,
the Solnstsevo organization, the Young Joon Yang gang, or the Black Dragons?
They’re involved in organized crime, too. [ . . . ]. These groups have much in
common with their Mafia brethren, beginning with their hunger for power
and profit. But what sets them apart is their reach. While traditional mobsters
mostly operate domestically, Eurasian and Asian crime groups are
transnational.
The idea of “the Mafia”, thanks to both popular culture and law enforce-
ment directions, is crystallised in contemporary perceptions. Not dissimilar
from the Italian Structure Model, the US Enterprise model is based on the
idea that organised crime is best understood by looking at structures,
families and groups as criminal enterprises engaged in profitable activities
in the illegal markets and with enough money and power to be competitive
(albeit by infiltration and corruption) in the legal markets too. The idea of
organised crime as “criminal enterprise”, with affiliates having a common
or shared (and criminal) purpose lasting overtime, is applicable to both
“traditional” organised crime (the Mafia) and non-traditional, new forms,
such as in transnational criminal groups. Notwithstanding the historical
origin of the illicit enterprise theory – as a theory opposed to the alien
conspiracy theory, which characterised organised crime as ethnic-based and
alien problem – today the term “criminal enterprise” is used with reference
to both domestic and international groups, both of single ethnicity and
multi-ethnic ones. Again, the FBI specifies this in the story above:
Eurasian criminal groups hail from dozens of countries spanning the Baltics,
the Balkans, Central/Eastern Europe, Russia, the Caucacus, and Central Asia.
Although ethnically-based, they work with other ethnic groups when perpe-
trating crimes. Asian organized crime includes traditional enterprises like the
Chinese Triads, Chinese Tong, and Japanese Boryokudan (a.k.a., Yakuza), as
well as more loosely organised groups like the Big Boys Circle, the Asian Boyz
Group, and Vietnamese and Korean criminal enterprises.
in this chapter, it was very clear that the dominant view was “that an
‘organised criminal’ is one who has committed a crime while
occupying an organisational position for committing that crime”
(Task Force Report, 1967: 59). Today’s conceptualisation of transna-
tional organised crime, which is instead linked to the securitisation
process after 9/11, still measures up against that “traditional” con-
ceptualisation, therefore allowing for contemporary use of the word
and concept of “enterprise” with both traditional and non-traditional
meanings.
Over the past few decades, US law enforcement has had great success
against the major crime families identified as LCN by using FBI’s
investigative methods and through the support of the DOJ and
Attorney General’s offices throughout various states. Most of the his-
tory of RICO is essentially based on the criminal law interpretation of
what mafia is, what mafia does and how it does it. It is fundamental,
for the evolution of RICO that the enterprise concept is not only
understood and accepted as a viable legal concept but also that it
keeps evolving to be applicable to contemporary manifestations of
organised crime. Thanks to the construction of RICO, and the notions
of enterprise criminality and pattern of racketeering activity, the Act
has moved considerably forward also in the way it has targeted what is
commonly indicated as “non-traditional” organised crime. The US
Enterprise model relies on RICO for complex enterprise criminality –
that is, white-collar and enterprise crimes – and for political corruption
thanks to the combination of RICO with mail and wire frauds. More
problematic has been the expansion of the civil provisions of the RICO
Act, due to the difficulties of detaching the notion of enterprise from its
criminal nature and attach it instead to quantifiable damage. Today, for
136 4 Case Study 2: United States of America and the Enterprise Model
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times between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and each colony
had its own policing history, there is clearly legal convergence among the
various systems (Hufnagel, 2013). Organised crime has represented a
challenge for policing systems in Australia, especially in terms of cross-
border cooperation and information/intelligence sharing at both state and
federal levels. The territoriality and jealousy that still exist among state
police forces often frustrate the efforts made at the federal level to fight the
various manifestations of organised crime.
In Australia, like in the UK and differently from Italy and the USA,
organised crime has not been conceptualised around a notion of tradi-
tional mafia-type organisations, if not as a negative contrast, following
the US alien conspiracy rhetoric. For this reason Australia is third on our
mafia–OC spectrum. It was 1964 when a Commonwealth Police’s
investigation into migrant activities1 linked the threat of organised
criminal activities to migrants groups. In particular, the investigation
sought to “gauge the extent, if any, to which secret organisations, such as
the Mafia, have developed in Australia”, following a consideration that
“the current problems in Australia in migrant groups are limited to
Yugoslav and the small Italian community in the Mafia”. Decades
later, in 2002, a paper published by the Australian Institute of
Criminology (Morrison, 2002) reads:
1
Attorney’s General Department Commonwealth Police investigation into migrant activity – General
[organised crime, Mafia, criminal intelligence; 18 pp] Contents range 14 August 1964–October 1964
Series numberA432 Control symbol 1964/2403 Barcode 1111198.
Section 1 The Identity of Organised Crime Between Tradition . . . 143
The image of men riding motorcycles while also being responsible for
criminal activities is arguably the contemporary version of historical
pictures of bandits and brigands raiding towns and showing off manly
power over peasants. This visible side of organised criminality is clearly
not only Australian and definitely not new; more specifically, it is linked
to American urban places. Dulaney (2005) reports how the discourse
around the formation of such gangs, usually dating back to mid-twentieth
century, is actually based on very weak evidence. Also, the term “outlaw”,
Dulaney specifies, first came from the non-affiliation of certain motorcycle
groups to the American Motorcyclist Association, rather than referring, as
it is now, to the breaking of the law. On the Australian scene, the
Australian Crime Commission (ACC, 2013) specified how “it is the
criminal activities of OMCGs that distinguish them from recreational
motorcycle riding clubs, which are made up of people who get together
144 5 Case Study 3: Australia and the Visibility Model
solely to ride their motorcycles and socialise”. Like any other criminal
phenomenon, the origins and evolution of motorcycle clubs need to be
understood within social and cultural factors. While arguably OMCGs
can be seen as a subculture built along military, disciplined and controlled
lines where affiliates share identity and a place in society, it is specifi-
cally on their “togetherness” and “potential threat of physical violence”
that interviewees in Australia place their blame. The visibility of
OMCGs – and the subsequent panic around “bikies” – is linked to
their feuds and public display of violence in certain moments of
Australian history. Both media and scholars refer to some of the events
that are well known to Australians when it comes to OMCGs. For
example, Ayling (2011b) refers to the notorious 1984 “Milperra
Massacre”. When gun shots were fired among 60 members of both
the Bandidos and the Comancheros gangs in a hotel parking area in
Sydney’s west, seven died and several were wounded, resulting in 43
people charged in one of Australia’s largest criminal cases (Harvey and
Simpson, 1989). Similarly, Schloenhardt (2008) starts his paper with a
short narration of the Melbourne shooting in 2007, when one man was
killed and two others were injured with the involvement of a member
of the Hells Angels. In 2009, a fight between OMCGs’ members
caused a murder at Sydney Airport, thus rekindling the moral panic
associated with bikies and subsequent political and juridical responses
(Ayling, 2014). Barker (2010: 135) has compiled a table collating
events of Motor Cycle Gang Violence in Australia. A total of 20 events
appear in the table, with a disproportionate amount happened in 1999.
This exercise confirms how every Australian state has more or less
experienced bikies’ violence.
Whereas the violent side of these gangs seems to be self-evident, the
involvement of OMCGs in serious and/or organised crimes appears to
be the ultimate realisation of fears linked to the images of these groups
(Shaw, 2002). As pointed out in one of the interviews at the Australian
Federal Police in Melbourne:
For the better or the worse, Outlaw Motor Cycle Gangs do conjure an
image of white men with long beards, long hair, ponytails and tattoos,
riding big motorbikes. Not only their “togetherness” is what gives the idea
Section 1 The Identity of Organised Crime Between Tradition . . . 145
The Commonwealth Police’s (in existence until the Australian Federal Police
was formed in 1979) investigation into migrant activities2 in October 1964
seconded Colin Brown, from the Australian Security Intelligence
Organisation (ASIO), to the Attorney’s General Department for a very
specific project. The aim of the project was “to undertake a survey of whether,
and if so the extent to which, a secret society of Calabrians or similar society
has become established in Australia with the object of engaging in extortion
and organised crime”. This enquiry followed the alarm raised by John
Cusack, from the US Bureau of Narcotics, in August 1964.3 Cusack had
warned that there was an Italian Secret Society operating in Melbourne, in
Victoria, in New South Wales and South Australia and, to a lesser extent also
Queensland and Western Australia. He had been extremely careful in his
terminology and very cautious in using the word “Mafia”, which, as he
specifies “is Sicilian in origin and membership”. The Secret Society he
referred to, instead, “is exclusively Calabrian”, “it numbers at least 300
members, 200 alone in the Melbourne area” and “it is obviously a derivation
2
Attorney’s General Department Commonwealth Police investigation into migrant activity –
General [organised crime, Mafia, criminal intelligence; 18 pp] Contents range 14 August 1964–
October 1964 Series number A432 Control symbol 1964/2403 Barcode 1111198.
3
Italian Criminal Society – complicity in the distribution of forged currency Contents range
1964–1986 Series number A432 Control symbol 1968/2173 Access status Open with exception
Barcode 3190972.
Section 1 The Identity of Organised Crime Between Tradition . . . 147
law enforcement and media throughout the decades. Australia is the first
and only country where “mafia” has always meant Calabrian ‘ndrangheta
and not Sicilian mafia (Sergi, 2016). This, however, has not always led to
a consistent and effective anti-mafia response and intervention. In 1991,
the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence (ABCI) conducted another
assessment of the situation, which did not seem to have improved or been
resolved, but rather worsened and complicated (Macrì and Ciconte, 2009;
Sergi, 2012; Sergi, 2015b). A Royal Commission Inquiry, the Woodward
Commission (1977–1979) established by the government of New South
Wales (Gilligan, 2002), looked at the events surrounding the disappear-
ance of Bruce Donald Mackay in 1977, linked to Calabrian drug trafficker
Robert Trimbole and the criminal clans in Griffith, NSW. The
Woodward Commission made a number of recommendations regarding
drug crime that, however, were largely ignored by government, following
the fate of other Royal Commissions (Moffitt, 1985: 76; Gilligan, 2002).
The dubious value of the investigations into the Griffith-based drug clans
and the Mackay affair was complicated by the fact that Robert Trimbole
fled the country (Sergi, 2015b). However, almost 30 years on the Mackay
case is well known and it is one of the few historical events linked to the
Calabrian mafia clans ingrained in public perception. As shared in an
interview with a senior member of the New South Wales Police: “that is
how the story goes. Those two lines of houses in Griffith . . . seemed to be
where everything started and everything ended too. But after Mackay
things went kind of quiet again”.
The question of the continuity in criminal activities and criminal
structure between the 1970 and 1980s and today in the criminal groups
linked to, or descending from, the Calabrian ‘ndrangheta is a serious one
and cannot be taken lightly. There are reasons to believe that indeed there
is such continuity and that the clans, even if quiescent at different
moments in time, have never really lost their connection and the member-
ship to the ‘ndrangheta in Calabria. This is demonstrated by the recur-
rence of certain surnames in the affiliation and succession of the clans, by
the similar geo-localisation of mafia activities in today’s Australia when
compared to 30 years ago (if not to the 1960s) and by the appearance of
Australian-based operations also in Italian investigations (DNA, 2014;
DNA, 2011). While the Italian authorities have more than once warned
Organised Crime and Mafia: Between Forgetfulness and Visibility 149
4
Commonwealth Police investigation into migrant activity – General [organised crime, Mafia,
criminal intelligence; 18 pp] Contents range 14 August 1964–October 1964 Series numberA432
Control symbol 1964/2403 Barcode 1111198.
Organised Crime and Mafia: Between Forgetfulness and Visibility 151
If you consider how much this country owes to migration from everywhere
in the world, it is impossible to believe there is no criminal dimension
linked to membership of ethnic groups. As far as I know, at various
152 5 Case Study 3: Australia and the Visibility Model
moments in time, we have determined that ethnic links were more or less
overrated in Australian organised crime, but at the end of the day, in such a
multi-cultural society ethnic membership is always going to be factored in
by law enforcement when assessing organised crime or mafia groups, it is
after all the most natural concept to grasp, ethnic membership I mean.
Outlaw motorcycle gangs are the most visible organised crime group
involved in the use of violence and extortion in Queensland. Violence
is used to extort money and assets from legitimate business owners,
non-affiliated drug dealers, rival gangs and people operating in gang
territory.
meant that other areas of organised crime active in Queensland have lost
visibility as a result (QLD Commission, 2015: 2):
The evidence before the Commission suggests that the focus upon – and
resources solely dedicated to – the threat of outlaw motorcycle gangs by
the QPS [Queensland Police Service], has meant that other types of
organised crime have not been able to be appropriately investigated.
disposes that: “serious and organised crime groups are more complex and
pervasive than ever before. These groups are well resourced, highly adaptive
and have diversified their operations across multiple crime types and
jurisdictional boundaries” (Australian Government, 2015: 4). Organised
crime, therefore, is also “serious”, which is a theme further explored in the
next chapters and which raises questions about the measurements of harm
by various law enforcement agencies.
Moreover, the Australian Crime Commission had identified different
threats visible within emerging and established illicit markets. Law
enforcement’s responses pivot around initiatives to target these threats
(ACC, 2015b; Australian Government, 2009). The system is complex
and based on multi-lateral partnerships among agencies. In fact, the
political arrangements of Australia do not allow for anything different. A
federation with nine jurisdictions, of which six national states, two
national territories and the Commonwealth, necessarily encounters pro-
blems related to allocation of tasks, sharing of information and intelli-
gence collection. Conversations at the ACC and the AFP have
confirmed how working together with state police forces can prove
problematic in cross-borders investigations, when it is often unclear
who has jurisdiction and therefore power of directing investigations.
The “territoriality” of national police forces across Australia does not
relate only to organised crime but touches upon all areas of criminal
justice (Hufnagel, 2013). However, when it comes to countering orga-
nised crime, the situation is complicated by the existence of a federal
model deprived of federal reach: in fact, without a federal offence of
organised crime the primacy of Commonwealth law enforcement agen-
cies over national law enforcement cannot be justified (Sergi, 2016). As
noticed at the AFP in Adelaide:
Part 9.9 of the Cth. Criminal Code Act 1995, titled “Criminal
Associations and Organisations” and placed within the Chapter on
“Dangers to the Community”, provides offences for association with
someone engaged in serious organised crime activity, for providing
material support to a criminal organisation, for facilitating the commis-
sion of offences by a criminal organisation, for directing a criminal
organisation. An organisation for the purposes of these offences “consists
of 2 or more persons; the organisation’s aims or activities include
facilitating the engagement in conduct, or engaging in conduct, consti-
tuting an offence against any law that is, or would if committed be, for
the benefit of the organisation” (Cth. Criminal Code Act 1995, Part 9.9,
160 5 Case Study 3: Australia and the Visibility Model
5
Criminal Law (Criminal Organisations Disruption) Amendment Act 2013, section 60A. CODA
introduced a new criminal offence: Participants in criminal organisation being knowingly present
in public places. This offence relies on a list created by CODA, which is now part of the Criminal
Code 1899 (Qld).
The Financial Approach 161
in February 2015 amended the Cth Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA)
with provisions on unexplained wealth as already introduced by the Cth
Crimes Legislation Amendments (Serious and Organised Crime Act)
2010. It confirms the burden of proof on the recipient of the order, by
also requiring him/her to pay back the unexplainable/unexplained amount
(section 179E Cth POCA). The reversed burden of proof on the defen-
dant aims at not assuming the link between the unexplained wealth and
any “(i) offence against a law of the Commonwealth; (ii) foreign indictable
offence; (iii) State offence that has a federal aspect” (section 179E.1.b.
POCA). Nonetheless, the links between unexplained wealth and orga-
nised crime are clear in the minds of policy-makers. As noticed by
Goldsmith et al (2014), unexplained wealth regulations need to be seen
as attempts to pull away from conviction-based (criminal) forfeiture and
move towards non conviction-based (civil) confiscation, which avoids the
problems of criminal procedures and the prevalence of financial expertise
over criminal law. Unexplained wealth regulations, in Australian federal
law, strengthen the relationship between confiscation and organised crime
investigations independently from the results of prosecution. As noticed
within the AFP in Adelaide, in fact, “these people [the ‘organised crim-
inals’] might even be easy to spot in fancy cars or expensive properties, but
we cannot act on suspicion, we need to either prove their involvement in
criminal activities or question their wealth in relation to their own
declared means”.
The AFP, the former ACC (now ACIC) and Australian Taxation
Office in February 2011 launched a Criminal Assets Confiscation
Taskforce (CACT) to enhance the identification and the pursuit of
potential (criminal) asset confiscation. The message was “taking the
profit out of crime”, which match the motivations behind the unex-
plained wealth amendments of POCA in 2010 (Bartels, 2010). Within
the CACT, the AFP has taken on the leadership by commencing
litigation on behalf of the Commonwealth and becoming the obvious
point for collection of referrals from the rest of the country or abroad
(AFP et al., 2011). Through an intelligence-led approach, asset recovery
and confiscation have interestingly become the proactive side of financial
investigations into organised crime cases. On the other side, the
Commonwealth unexplained wealth regime allows to confiscate without
164 5 Case Study 3: Australia and the Visibility Model
the need for a criminal conviction or any evidence of the link between the
property and a criminal offence. Arguably, however, unexplained wealth
orders assume a more symbolic meaning, when suspicion raises questions
of asset ownership and places on individuals the burden of proving that
ownership. In 2013 the Coalition Policy to Tackle Crime read: “We will
strengthen unexplained wealth legislation to strike at the heart of organised
crime by taking away the profits and assets of criminal syndicates and
thereby undermine their business model” (The Coalition, 2013: 10). The
link among organised crime activities, proceeds of crime and unexplained
wealth seems to be fundamentally entrenched in the current approach.
OC as Whole-of-government
security approach
threat
(federal)
Trends/
OC as a
priorities Individual focus
visible &
local Anti-association
Task Unexplained wealth
crime laws
forces
issue
(national)
References
ABC. (2015) South Australia’s bikie laws are ‘guilt by association’ laws, could
be challenged in court, lawyer says. ABC News. 30 July (Available at: http://
www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-31/sa’s-bikie-laws-are-’guilt-by-association’/
6661540).
ACC. (2009) Annual Report 2008–2009, Canberra: Australian Government
Publishing Service.
ACC. (2011a) Organised crime in Australia. Canberra: Australian Crime
Commission.
172 5 Case Study 3: Australia and the Visibility Model
queensland/murdered-chef-peter-milos-had-links-to-albanian-mafia-family/
story-fnihsrf2-1226909562268.
Rogers K. (2009) Developments in Australian strategic criminal intelligence.
In: Ratcliffe J (ed) Strategic Thinking in Criminal Intelligence. Sydney: The
Federation Press.
Rule of Law Institute of Australia. (2014) Legal responses to criminal organisa-
tions in NSW and QLD. Available at: http://www.ruleoflaw.org.au/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/Rule-of-Law-Institute-Legal-Responses-to-
Criminal-Organisations-NSW-and-QLD.pdf.
Schloenhardt A. (2008) Mafias and motorbikes: New organised crime offences
in Australia. Current Issues in Criminal Justice 19(3): 259–282.
Sergi A. (2012) Family influence: Italian mafia group operates in Australia.
Jane’s Intelligence Review (August): 46–47.
Sergi A. (2015a) Divergent mind-sets, convergent policies. Policing models
against organised crime in Italy and in England within international frame-
works. European Journal of Criminology 12(6): 658–680.
Sergi A. (2015b) The evolution of the Australian ‘ndrangheta. An historical
perspective. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 48(2): 155–
174.
Sergi A. (2016) Countering the Australian ‘ndrangheta. The criminalisation of
mafia behaviour in Australia between national and comparative criminal
law. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology DOI: 10.1177/
0004865816652367.
Shaw M. (2002) Results of a pilot survey of forty selected organized criminal
groups in sixteen countries. Global Programme Against Transnational
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Small C and Gilling T. (2016) Evil Life: The True Story of the Calabrian Mafia
in Australia, Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
The Coalition. (2013) The Coalition’s policy to tackle crime, Canberra: available
at http://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2013/08/19/tony-abbott-coali
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6
Case Study 4: United Kingdom
and the Activity Model
Focus 1: Liverpool
Liverpool has often been depicted as a violent city where street crime is
gun crime and gang feuds are everyday business (Kokosalakis et al.,
2006; Garcia, 2006). It has been noticed how in the past two or three
decades “the perception that Merseyside was some sort of criminals’
playground spiralling out of control was seemingly endlessly repeated”
(Murden, 2006: 469). In 2012 the president of the UN’s International
Section 1 The Identity of Organised Crime . . . 181
Narcotics Control Board said that Liverpool has no-go areas similar to
those in Brazil or Mexico, where drugs and crime are taking over. Local
police and law enforcement denied fiercely and confirmed to be one of
three areas (with Birmingham and Manchester) in the UK to receive
the highest amount of funding under Home Secretary Theresa May’s
plans to tackle gang and youth violence (Brown, 2012). The role of the
media in perpetuating the image of Liverpool as a city attempting a
rebranding through culture, but eventually still tied up in ugly stories
of crime, has been a concern for both locals and scholars (Boland,
2008).
Notwithstanding the lack of a structured and comprehensive
analysis of Liverpool’s (organised) underworld at an academic level,
it has been argued (Lavorgna et al., 2013) that Liverpool suffers of
two main problems when it comes to organised crime. On one side,
youth gangs are proliferating in some areas of the city, committing
common crimes and engaging in street violence; on the other side,
instead, the city has been home of some of the most productive
criminal masterminds and the most sophisticated criminal networks
in the country – mainly involved in drug trafficking nationally and
internationally.
Gang-life includes anything from teenagers joining criminal groups to
violence escalating in the streets out of petty or serious arguments. The
reference to delinquent criminal groups is not a characteristic of
Liverpool alone; gang crime has been considered the symbol of fractured
Britain (Goldson, 2011). Youth gangs mainly represent a problem of
antisocial behaviours, street crimes and public safety (Shropshire and
MacFarquhar, 2002). They look disorganised or moderately organised,
they have strong identities based mainly on locations, versatile offending
patterns and show amplification of criminal behaviour over time (Klein,
2001). The increasing violence of street youth gangs in the recent
decades is the public face of crime portrayed by the media in
Liverpool (National Geographic, 2010). In the eyes of the media,
these groups of teenagers have often caused “respectable” people to
abandon the neighbourhood and they hinder the progress of the city as
they cause social disorder (BBC Inside Out, 2008). Economist, in November
2015 published an article on young people and guns collecting the voices of
182 6 Case Study 4: United Kingdom and the Activity Model
former gang members, law enforcement and charities in the city. The article
(The Economist, 2015) reported:
Whereas London’s teen gunslingers are a footloose, erratic lot, and easy to
catch, Liverpool’s are organised, and knitted closer to the family firms that
run the city’s crime scene. [ . . . ] There, kingpins also employ teens in jobs,
which involve opportunities to pilfer weapons, picking them up or hiding
them (“‘Soldiers’, they call them round here,” says one Toxteth resident).
[ . . . ] These mafia-like groups, generations old, come with status: “It’s the
family name that carries them,” she says. This may appeal to teens who,
according to locals, are dogged by police handing out antisocial- behaviour
orders, which leaves them with scarce job options beyond shelf-stacking.
The picture of social exclusion, gangs, gun trade and youth crime in
Liverpool, therefore, appears mixed up with higher levels crime firms:
there is, for example, a link between young people in gangs, firearms and
drug trade (ACPO, 2007). Liverpool has a reputation of being one of the
main hubs of drug trafficking, importation and smuggling in the UK, also
thanks to the presence of the most successful drug traffickers and criminal
networks, exploiting the port and local gang life (Pearson and Hobbs,
2004; Marsh et al., 2012; Lees, 2011). Groups like the Liverpool Mafia, for
example, have made the history of the city. The Liverpool Mafia was a
drug-dealing alliance emerged after the Toxteth riots in 1981 between
white middle-aged bank robbers and young black gangsters (National
Geographic, 2010). As reported, (Townsend, 2008):
have dominated the underworld of Liverpool and have made its criminal
history since the 1950s (Sergi, 2012); people like Charlie Siega, Michael
Shower, Stephen French, Tommy Comerford and more recently Curtis
“Cocky” Warren (long-standing Interpol’s target and in the Sunday
Time Rich List in 2007), Colin Smith (Cocaine King) and
Christopher Welsh Jnr (known as “Scouse” Escobar) who after his
sentence in 2013 was found importing drugs to Liverpool and through-
out Scotland from jail (Humphries, 2015).
Even though the media have been reporting how organised crime
groups in Liverpool have established direct and successful links with drug
cartels in Latin America (Townsend, 2008), the size and characteristics of
drug importations and trafficking in Liverpool and the actual reach of
Liverpool criminals outside the city boundaries have not been comprehen-
sively assessed. The lack of analysis or report on the status of drug trade
specific to Liverpool should be a serious warning to law enforcement and
politicians in the area. From a preliminary read of news, press releases from
Merseyside police and the NCA and snippets from court cases, Liverpool’s
underworld confirms its historical link to charismatic gangsters (Smith,
2013) but still appears quite chaotic and not too diversified in terms of
criminal activities (mostly drugs and related or connected offences, like arm
trade and money laundering). On the other side, however, Liverpool’s
criminal networks also emerge as internationally active, especially domi-
nant in the cocaine market but also competitive in the heroin one (Wall
and Chistyakova, 2015), enduring and well connected with other criminal
groups in Europe (the Netherlands and Spain primarily, but not only).
This distinguishes them from other crime networks in other urban areas of
the country, more local and territorial. As noticed by the Merseyside Police
(2013: 7) “those involved in Merseyside organised crime groups have a
disproportionate impact on crime across the region and nationally”.
Focus 2: London
Criminal groups in London are not easy to map. The city changes at
every corner and so do social structures, interactions and networks,
including criminal ones. Historically, crime groups in London have
184 6 Case Study 4: United Kingdom and the Activity Model
been centred in the East End, which once was, more or less truthfully,
the reign of the Kray brothers (Southwell, 2009). As the city changed,
and working-class neighbourhoods evolved also thanks to new migrants,
various criminal networks, firms, settled from South to North London.
Differently from Liverpool, where criminal groups have often had an
international dimension also because of the port, London criminal
groups appear historically more territorial and more family-based.
However, while on one side London groups are locally rooted, on the
other side, the city is often portrayed as the stage of complex transna-
tional money laundering schemes, as well as being considered one of the
hubs of transit criminal networks from all over Europe (Wall and
Chistyakova, 2015). This is also linked to the “availability” of languages,
in London, as a distinctive trait of many criminal networks (Sergi,
2016b). As noticed by a public prosecutor: “there are over 30 languages
spoken daily in the streets of London and some of them are not easy or
common languages”. Not only the presence of different languages but
also the ethnic configuration of various London boroughs certainly
affects the criminal composition of the city. Multi-ethnicity is, however,
a characteristic of the whole country. Recent studies have attempted to
identify criminal specialisation patterns across ethnic groups also accord-
ing to their location and most of all to illicit markets (Silverstone, 2011;
Silverstone and Savage, 2010). For example, Turkish groups in North
London (especially in the area of Tottenham) are active and dominant in
the heroin market, but other nationalities, especially Nigerian,
Colombian and Dutch, are also present on the scene of drugs in the
city (Mills et al., 2013). Chinese, Russian, Romanian and other Eastern
European groups appear involved in large-scale frauds (Wall and
Chistyakova, 2015). The presence of cross-ethnic groups in different illicit
markets is a characteristic of London, but also representative of Britain
more generally. As reported by the Home Office (2013: 40) “in London
the Metropolitan Police assesses that foreign nationals comprise at least
25% of high-harm offenders (including organised crime group members)”.
London is, therefore, distinctively transnational in the composition of
criminal networks; it is still local in the geography of the different clans
and crime firms that, notwithstanding their chaotic and flexible structure,
appear often linked to specific areas of the city (Hobbs, 2013a).
Section 1 The Identity of Organised Crime . . . 185
I don’t think we have really sat down to analyse for ourselves what we
meant by the term organised crime, what we really meant was serious
Gangs, Not Mafia. Disorganised Crime and Glocal Groups 187
crime, serious crime activity and often, almost invariably, if you have very
serious sophisticated criminal activity it’s going to be organised, preme-
ditated and planned by groups of people who come together for that
purpose, in other words, if you are looking at very serious complex crime,
you are likely to be looking at people, gangs, committing it and so, in a
sense, I used to think of it in terms of being gang crime as much as
organised crime.
When mafia-style “gangs” appear, therefore, they are explained within alien
dimensions, as mafia is confirmed as extraneous concept to UK policing.
Furthermore, even though the overlapping of the language of organised
crime and gangs is not decisive, a differentiation is still made in policy-
making. When considering the sociological analyses of both concepts we
find more than one corresponding feature, which leaves us to think that
organised crime and gangs are indeed two peas of the same pod and that
the overlapping of the concept is somehow justified. Miller (1975: 121)
defined gang as an association of peers, organised, having specific lines of
authority and acting “to achieve a specific purpose or purposes which
generally include the conduct of illegal activity and control over a particular
territory, facility, or type of enterprise”. Similarly, Ball and Curry (1995)
stressed the social dimension of gangs by saying that:
Both these definitions do not conflict with the more recent Eurogang
conceptualisation that defines a gang as “durable, street-oriented youth
group whose involvement in illegal activity is part of the group’s iden-
tity” (Weerman et al., 2009: 20). The not-so-subtle difference between
organised crime and gangs, therefore, lies in three main traits: serious-
ness, reach and age. While gangs are generally intended as youth crime,
local and street-oriented, organised crime groups evoke serious crimes,
potentially hidden and potentially outside the local and beyond the
streets. As shared during an interview at the Metropolitan Police in
London, organised criminals “have got some identity, whether it is
tight or loose, and they have got common purposes when committing
a crime, they may be working at a particular crime or be broad-based in
Gangs, Not Mafia. Disorganised Crime and Glocal Groups 189
Gangs are locally dealt with, they are usually considered more chaotic,
more violent than organised crime groups and subject to power struggles
over territories (Bennett and Holloway, 2004). Interestingly, even though
organised crime groups and gangs are in theory considered as different
issues by law enforcement – with organised crime being a national security
threat and gangs being a social problem or a public order issue, mostly
related to youth justice – they share common language in institutional
approaches and they have been brought together in more than one
occasion both in official documents and for policing strategies. For
example, the Home Office Strategy for Organised Crime published in
2011 and titled significantly “Local to Global: Reducing the Risk from
Organised Crime” implies that gangs are low-level crime phenomena,
while OCGs are superior in sophistication and criminality (Home Office,
2011a: 15).
Low-level criminals can progress into organised crime through contact via
criminal networks or in prison. Drug traffickers may see members of street
gangs as disposable foot soldiers willing to take the greatest risks in street
level distribution. Street gang members may see this as an opportunity to
earn a reputation and move into organised crime.
The Home Secretary has set the police one simple mission: to cut
crime. How police forces pursue that mission will be left to their
professional discretion, and from 2012 they will be accountable to
their communities through Police and Crime Commissioners, instead
of the Home Office.
192 6 Case Study 4: United Kingdom and the Activity Model
This statement is significant for two reasons. First, it establishes the main
priority of police forces, which is crime reduction. Second, it stresses
how this goal shall be pursued at the local level through directives
provided by the Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), elected for
the first time in November 2012. The changes occurred within the
police are fundamental to understand the shift in organised crime
policies too. In a country like England, where police forces are many
and diversified, of course the approach to national crimes will be affected
by plural and often fractured responses.
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which took over the
work of the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National
Crime Squad, was established in 2006 with the Serious Crime and
Police Act 2005 and has terminated its mandate in late 2013 when
substituted by the National Crime Agency (NCA). The advent of the
NCA has not been welcome, as all the interviewees, apart from those at
the Home Office, agree that the NCA was/is only a rebranding of
SOCA, a product of the Coalition Government as much as SOCA
was a creation of the Labours when in power. Indeed, in terms of general
mandate there is very little difference in the way the supporting legisla-
tion for both agencies has been formulated. In the Court and Crime Act
2013 the NCA is presented as an intelligence agency as much as SOCA
was in the Serious Organised Crime Act 2005. However, whereas the
NCA has a crime-fighting function, SOCA was mainly presented as a
harm reduction and disruption agency. The latest organised crime
strategy (Home Office, 2013: 10) in confirmation and continuity of a
fact sheet published alongside the new Crime and Court Bill (Home
Office, 2012: 2), specifies that:
[The NCA] will develop and bring together intelligence on all types of
organised crime, prioritise crime groups according to the threats they
present and, in conjunction with the police, then lead, coordinate and
support our operational response.
The Crime and Court Act at section 1(4) and 1(5) provides that the
NCA has both a crime-reduction and a criminal intelligence function.
Previously, the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005,
Section 2 Policing Through Intelligence 193
The types of offence dealt with by OCD reflect the strategic approach
taken by SOCA to tackling serious and organised crime and concentrate
on offences involving drugs, money laundering, theft and fraud, human
trafficking, counterfeiting, the use of false documents and firearms.
with the law of conspiracy when used for fighting organised crime, calling
especially for a reform of the law on interceptions, which does not allow the
use of intercepted materials as evidence in court. The offence of membership
was again rejected in 2004 upon creation of SOCA (Home Office, 2004).
The offence of conspiracy in England and Wales is a common law legacy
and is an inchoate crime punishing any agreement to commit an unlawful act
or a lawful act through unlawful means (Grande, 1993; Law Commission,
2007). The essence of conspiracy is the proof of a criminal agreement.
Interestingly, when a group of people commit a series of offences over a
long period of time, prosecutors are almost bound to proceed on the basis of
several substantive counts: proving a single conspiracy at the basis of the
broad criminal activity could be almost impossible in practice (Ormerod and
Hooper, 2012). “There is no association when you cannot see the crime, I
mean, when they don’t commit a crime together they are not associated”,
said a barrister in London, rejecting the idea of guilt-by-association and
noticing how conspiracy is still easier to use because it only needs circum-
stantial evidence requirements (Simister et al., 2010). When a plurality of
crimes can be seen as part of one plan, then joint conspiracy rules allows to
group offences and offenders in the same trials (Sergi, 2015c). However, it is
not possible to prosecute both the conspiracy and the single crimes, without
giving valid motivations (The Law Commission, 1976: para. 1.86).
In the interviews with prosecutors/barristers there was a generalised per-
ception that conspiracy offences are adequate for targeting crimes linked to
organised crime. Indeed, conspiracy is actually preferable to membership or
participation offences, which conversely are perceived as unnecessary legal
strains because they punish conducts before they become fully criminal. The
idea of conspiracy suits very well the focus on organised crime as set of serious
crimes requiring agreements and premeditation. A membership offence
would require a shift of logic towards criminalising a group’s intentions rather
than individual crimes. This means that the membership offence, as for
example the one in the law against terrorism1 (Walker, 2009), brings a
1
An example is section 56(1) of the Terrorism Act 2000: “A person commits an offence if he
directs, at any level, the activities of an organisation which is concerned in the commission of acts
of terrorism”.
Criminalising Organised Crime(s) 197
different understanding of the nature of the offending, which does not fit the
usual grounds of English criminal law based on individual penal responsi-
bility within common law (UNODC, 2004). There seems to be, however, a
misconception about membership offences in the discourse. They are equa-
ted to offences of affiliation in a proscribed criminal organisation (as it is in
terrorism law), rather than intended as enterprise criminality. Eventually, as
proscribing specific organisations seems not possible in organised crime cases
(as no criminal network can be named and eventually proscribed), criminal
law pursues other ways.
A very interesting middle ground between conspiracy offences and
membership in organised crime groups – intended as above – has been
found in 2015 with section 45 of the Serious Crime Act 2015, which
not only introduced the offence of “participating in activities of orga-
nised crime groups”, but, in so doing, legally defined organised crime in
England and Wales. This new law presents more than one problem and
has been criticised by professional bodies – for example lawyers and
accountants – for the way it uses the word “organised”, “serious” and
“activity”, for its assumptions about motivations of organised criminals,
restricted to financial gain or profit, and for its overlapping with other
existing laws (Sergi, 2016a; Campbell, 2016b). The new offence targets
both direct and indirect participation in criminal activities of an orga-
nised crime group, especially those in supporting roles. As explained
(Home Office, 2014):
While it is too early to assess the effective reach of the new offence,
it seems that with the criminalisation of participation, rather than
198 6 Case Study 4: United Kingdom and the Activity Model
from it. More specifically the threshold for “relevant” benefits amounts
to £5,000. Whether or not a defendant has a criminal lifestyle is
determined by the Crown Court upon issuing a confiscation order
targeting the relevant benefits (part 2 POCA). Moreover, part 5 of
POCA regulates High Court’s civil recovery of wealth that, evidence
shows, was obtained through criminal activity (unexplained wealth).
The existence of unexplained wealth alone is not sufficient to proceed
with civil recovery; the enforcement authority has to demonstrate the
links with unlawful conducts. The burden of proof, therefore, is on the
institution and not the defendant. A proposal to reverse this onus and to
introduce unexplained wealth orders on the model of Australian ones
has been advanced in summer 2015 by Transparency International UK
(Martini, 2015) and has been followed by an action plan which sets out
the possibilities for new legal powers in the area (Home Office and HM
Treasury, 2016).
With a reversed burden of proof, unexplained wealth not only can be
linked to criminal activities, but it can also be used in corruption investiga-
tions. Corruption – usually considered, like money laundering, as both an
enabler and a manifestation of organised crime(s) in the UK – does not
always enjoy a stand-alone profile in criminal justice cases of organised
crime (Sergi, 2015b; Campbell, 2016b; Campbell, 2016a). This is because
corruption is often the bridge between the illegal activities of crime groups
and their legal dimensions. The NCA considers organised criminal groups
as necessarily able, money-wise and power-wise, to corrupt. However,
corruption here means essentially “public sector” corruption, as shared
by a senior manager at NCA: “unless it [organised crime] can corrupt it
can’t get anywhere, it cannot exist in isolation, it has to get in there [the
legal sector] also to defend itself . . . if you look at what constitutes orga-
nised crime, corruption is always going to be there”. A contrasting view,
based on the perception of crime groups in the country as unable to reach
high levels of corruption, could lead to reconsidering the conceptualisation
of organised crime as national security threat. If the capability to corrupt is
a quintessential feature of organised crime groups in the country, then it is
one of the reasons why organised crime damages national financial security
(NCA, 2015); if this view is not corroborated by data, then the whole
argument falls apart. However, notwithstanding an improved
The UK Activity Policing Model 201
2
International Corruption Unit at the National Crime Agency – http://www.nationalcrimea
gency.gov.uk/about-us/what-we-do/economic-crime/international-corruption-unit-icu
202 6 Case Study 4: United Kingdom and the Activity Model
UK Activity Model
OC as Intelligence
(Local)
Activities
Harm/
Disruption Prosecution
OC as
National Conspiracy Single Offences
Prevention/
Security
Protection
Threat
As the name says, the fulcrum of the Activity Model is the fact that the
definition of organised crime is not single but multiple, being organised
crime defined as set of activities, a set of crimes. The focus on the
activities is what causes all the other choices presented in the model.
The activities linked to the definition of organised crime are criminal
activities of different nature committed by groups of people, indicated
mostly as serious gangs and mostly linked to urban areas. Organised
crime is what organised crime does. This does not easily cover or include
3
Liverpool Crown Court, Judge Mr Justice Brian Langstaff, Case No. T20087213, 07-04-2009.
204 6 Case Study 4: United Kingdom and the Activity Model
have a clear definition but also has always been too difficult to measure.
The NCA substituting SOCA has in theory abandoned the rhetoric of
harm reduction to go back to prevention and disruption as more general
focus of a national strategy within the more general reform of policing.
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The second level of the comparative effort, which follows the pre-
sentation of the models separately, is an attempt to cluster terminologies
and categories of analysis not through approximation, but through
harmonisation. The following sections will highlight convergences and
divergences in both the conceptual and the procedural frameworks of
the four national policing models. The point is always the same: asses-
sing the influence of institutional conceptualisations on criminal policies
and procedures and vice versa.
Figure 7.1 shows the interaction among the four models and their
conceptualisations of the phenomenon/a of organised crime or mafias
through keywords and categories. The more a category is close to one or
more models or the connectors among them, the more that category is
Italy USA
Structure Model Enterprise Model
Structure-based offences
Grey area
Patterns of behaviours
Corruption Infiltration
Socio-cultural dimensions
Seriousness Sophistication
Gangs Conspiracy
Dangerousness
Violence
Harm
Activity-based offences
Australia UK/England
Visibility Model Activity Model
was already in place since 2002. The UK 2009 report “Extending Our
Reach” has been fundamentally constructed around the notion of eco-
nomic costs of organised crime and organised crime harm to businesses
and market competition. Australia, as said, has a strategy for combating
organised crime, which identifies money laundering as an intrinsic enabler
of organised crime activity. On the Italian side as well, the need for a
financial approach to organised crime is very clear in the Antimafia Code
(Law Decree 159/2011), where patrimonial sanctions as well as financial
prevention measures are described in length. These provisions have been
part of the legislations since 1950s as personal preventative measures and
later on, in 1982 were expanded to cover mafia associations (Hamilton,
2012; Vettori, 2007). Antimafia prosecutors repeatedly affirm how in Italy
next to the proceedings against mafias are the proceedings against assets,
which are parallel, intertwined and yet autonomous from the mafia
proceedings. The idea, which informs non-conviction based confiscation
and other forms of civil recovery is that there is “an intrinsic dangerous-
ness of the assets linked to the mafia phenomenon”, as noticed by a
Europol analyst in the Hague talking about the Italian Antimafia tools.
Trafficking (Drugs)
The types of offence dealt with by the Organised Crime Division OCD
reflect the strategic approach taken by SOCA to tackling serious and
organised crime and concentrate on offences involving drugs, money
laundering, theft and fraud, human trafficking, counterfeiting, the use of
false documents and firearms.
against what groups do rather than how they are. In the UK and in
Australia the seriousness of illegal activities commonly linked to organised
crime, such as drug, arms or human trafficking and fraud, makes the
dangerousness of organised crime groups. In Italy and in the US, serious-
ness is a concept indirectly connected to the ability of a group to corrupt
and infiltrate legal businesses, politics and institutions.
Glocalisation/Transnationality
All models share the perception that the transnationality of illicit markets
is an indicator of increased seriousness of criminal networks. In addition,
transnationality has also allowed overcoming what is considered “tradi-
tional” organised crime, by sharing experiences across borders. It does
not surprise, therefore, that in models where illegal markets define the
strategy we find statements like the following during a meeting in the
Metropolitan Police in London:
Family-run, Mob-style mafia groups like those in The Godfather and The
Sopranos, once thought of as the defining stereotype, no longer dominate
organised crime. The nature of the modern-day crime landscape is such
that those old-style traditional groups are no longer so prominent.
1
Operation Mamma Santissima, No. 9339/2009 R. G. N. R. DDA + No. 5448/2010 R.G. GIP +
No. 50/2015 DDA Reggio Calabria.
2
Operation Bellu Lavuru, No. 1130/06 R.G.R.N. DDA. Reggio Calabria.
222 7 Convergences and Divergences Across the Four Models
nation’s illegal drug market will be one of the first tasks undertaken
by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission”, as reported in
the Herald Sun in July 2016 (Moor, 2016) in repetition of what
already said in the previous years (Moor, 2013).
Today’s difficulties to deal with the ‘ndrangheta and the ‘ndranghetisa-
tion process is the key convergence between Italy and in Australia in
general. The focus on mafia migration is also a legacy of the American
conceptualisation of mafias. Italy and the US share the experience of
dealing with an “enemy from within”. Even though the American experi-
ence with “La Cosa Nostra” has been characterised by alienation of the
threat, an effective strategy to fight LCN has been reached when the threat
was internalised as a wholly American, albeit of foreign origin, problem.
According to the FBI’s Attaché in Rome:
Italy has its autochthonous mafias; they grew from within; there is some
sort of intuition that comes from this. In this sense, yes Italians will always
be different – but as soon as the US realised that those Italians were
actually also Americans, well then everything changed for us too.
Finally, the differences between Italy and the rest of the world especially
in cases of mafia movements have given origin to a sense of isolationism
among Italian authorities (Sergi, 2016d). As noticed by a Chief
Antimafia Prosecutors in Reggio Calabria:
Europe is not paying attention. You hear all sorts of policies and agree-
ments are in place, but truth is that half of the time European countries
don’t know what they are dealing with. They don’t see the gunshots and
they think all is quiet; they don’t understand the new faces of mafias. It is
disrespectful to Italy when other countries choose to look the other way.
Italy USA
Structure Model Enterprise Model
Structure-based offences
Grey area Infiltration/Corruption
Prosecution
Criminalisation of Continuity
Indirect procedures
Multi-agency approaches
Prevention Seriousness
Folow the money
Drug Networks
Local partnerships
Intelligence
Unexplained Wealth
Violence
Criminalisation of status and agreement
Harm reduction
Activity-based offences
Australia UK/England
Visibility Model Activity Model
The main divergence between the models lies at the core of their
strategy. The Activity Model in the UK and the Visibility Model in
Australia place intelligence at the core of their strategy, the former
with the National Crime Agency (since October 2013) and the latter
with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (Australian
Crime Commission until July 2016); if intelligence “works” then the
rest of the strategy follows. This leads to an approach mostly focused
on extrajudicial interventions, which, on one side, keep the secrecy
of the operations quite tight and, on the other side, are heavily
focused on prevention and disruption. On the other side of the
spectrum, the Italian Structure Model and the Enterprise Model in
the US have centred the strategy around prosecution; Italy with the
Antimafia District and National Prosecution Directorates and the
US with the Department of Justice’s divisions and task forces on
organised crime in the Attorney’s General offices. Through strong
prosecutions both models reach important results at trial. This is
possible (a) because of the prominence of criminal law (article 416
and 416-bis in Italian Criminal Code and the RICO offences in
federal law in the US) and (b) because of the stigma attached to
maxi-trials and, more generally, mafia-related operations. The
Intelligence versus Prosecution dichotomy – which obviously is not a
clear cut distinction as all models eventually rely on both at some
point – is the flip side of the Activity versus Structure contrast.
Multi-agency Approaches
for mafia crimes but law 279/2002, amending article 41-bis of the
Prison Rules (Ordinamento Penitenziario), established a hard prison
treatment for mafia convicts still in place today. Article 41-bis of the
Prison Rules provides a special treatment for high calibre mafia members
in prison and is a sign of the harsher treatment reserved to prominent
members of a criminal association. The DNA has repeatedly declared
how extremely important it is to have the Antimafia prosecutors guar-
antee the right application of this norm, because of the very complex
balance with human rights provisions and because it is essential to
maintain its preventative aim – through incapacitation. The DNA has
declared that article 41-bis of the Prison Rules is best used when
prosecutors are more successful in their work, by linking once again
success to a higher rate of arrests and convictions (DNA, 2012: 368):
Criminalisation
might shed blood while also compromising the economy and fuelling
illegal markets, or is there also a dangerousness of these groups linked
to their twisting the correct functioning of democratic institutions?
This is a conceptual question at the core of criminal law in all models
and it is indeed the core of the mafia–OC spectrum. In the Structure
and Enterprise models, the real nature of offending needs to consider
that mafia power is often protected and reinforced by other powers,
such as politics or financial entrepreneurship, but does not necessarily
merge with them. Very clearly noticed by an Antimafia Prosecutor in
Milan:
The strength of the ‘ndrangheta, however, lies not only in its military
strength (which is extremely dangerous) but in the network of plots and
conspiracies that this mafia has been able to establish with entire portions
of the so-called “civil society”: politicians, businessmen, professionals.
This represents the “know-how” of the ‘ndrangheta and this is what
makes it particularly powerful and insidious. It is not, therefore, enough
to target the military wing; you need to cut the ties with the “grey area”
that is, with those individuals who, although not organically in the
criminal structure, encourage its success through their contribution and
increase its social strength and its economic force.
The complexity of the criminal situation of a city like Rome, for example,
lies not just in the presence of mafia power, different mafias, different
powers by the way, but most of all in the systems of corruption. These
systems are intertwined with mafia clans, they might use the mafia
method, they might merge with them, but however reprehensible these
corruptive behaviours are we should not forget the difference between a
system of corruption and a mafia system.
Prevention
that he/she got from the predicate offence on his/her own. As noticed by
an English barrister and Crown prosecutor:
All countries have adopted their own version of this offence. British
POCA, s.327, does not differentiate between laundering one’s own
property and other people’s property. Similarly, the Australian
Criminal Code criminalises self-laundering at Sections 400.3 – 400.9.
In Nahlous v R3 and Thorn v R,4 Australian courts have criticised the
practice of “double charging” both self laundering and the predicate
offence when the criminality of the money laundering offence is com-
pletely absorbed by the predicate offence. However, the CDPP,5 in line
with the CPS in the UK, stated that, if necessary, both charges can be
advanced to reflect the overall criminality of the case through careful ad
hoc judgement. It is also interesting to notice that Italy was very late in
criminalising self-laundering; the offence, now article 648 ter.1 of the
Criminal Code was only introduced in January 2015 with law 186/
2014; a National Antimafia prosecutor in Rome indicated this as an
unconceivable delay. In the US, 18 U.S.C. § 1956 & 1957 had crim-
inalised the laundering of someone’s own proceeds of crime, but the
framework, including forfeiture schemes, for such proceedings has
evolved considerably since then (Gallant, 2005).
Another procedural convergence in all models is the regulation of
confiscation as tool to prevent money laundering as well as to punish
individuals convicted of organised crime-related offences. All models
have legislation in place to retrieve criminal assets in organised crime
3
Nahlous v R [2010] NSWCCA 58.
4
Thorn v R [2009] 3 NSWCCA 294.
5
Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutor, Litigation Instruction no.10 May 2013.
Section 1 Convergences and Divergences 233
6
Proposed s 6A(1) of the Criminal Assets Confiscation Act 2005 (SA), proposed by Criminal
Assets Confiscation (Prescribed Drug Offenders) Amendment Bill 2015 (SA) cl 6 (as at the first
reading speech in the House of Assembly on 11 February 2015).
7
South Australia, Parliamentary Debates, House of Assembly, 11 February 2015, 45 (JR Rau,
Deputy Premier, Attorney-General).
8
Senate Report. No. 617, 91st Congress, 1st session at 78–83 (1969).
Section 2 The Mafia Spectrum: Focus on Structures and Activities 235
9
Crown Prosecution Service, Legal Guidance Proceeds of Crime, http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_
to_r/proceeds_of_crime_act_guidance/#a16
236 7 Convergences and Divergences Across the Four Models
10
Operation Old Bridge, proc. no. 11059/06 RGNR DDA Palermo.
Section 2 The Mafia Spectrum: Focus on Structures and Activities 237
the ocean about the 2015 Operation New Bridge, which, instead, is about
the Calabrian ‘ndrangheta and the links between the clan Ursino from
Gioiosa Ionica in Calabria and the Gambino Family in New York. One of
the Italian prosecutors on the case commented: “the ‘ndrangheta, just has it
has happened in Canada, is taking over Cosa Nostra and the Sicilians in the
USA”. A US attorney of the Brooklyn office noticed: “the ‘ndrangheta is
akin to the Neapolitan Camorra and the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, it is an
exceptionally dangerous and insidious criminal organisation whose tentacles
spread well outside of Italy, so of course they seek to establish a foothold in
New York”. One year later, on the 7th of May 2015, in Operation
Columbus11 the same authorities made other arrests between New York
and Italy. More than just a substantiation of the presence of Calabrian
clans in the LCN families of New York, Operation Columbus was the
confirmation of the “authoritative role of leadership that the ‘ndrangheta
families detain in international drug trafficking”, as noticed by a prosecutor
in Reggio Calabria.
Different story in Australia. When on the 15th of March 2016, lawyer
Joseph Acquaro was found dead in Melbourne, newspapers all over the
world reported the news with sensationalism followed, however, by
negationism – a form of denialism described by Lupo (2009) for the
Sicilian mafia in the US and, as Bennetts (2016) confirmed, applicable
to the ‘ndrangheta in Australia. A BBC article12 about the murder
exemplifies that. The journalist notes how on one side the ‘ndrangheta
is a ruthless criminal conspiracy (sensationalism): “there is a paradox at
the heart of Melbourne’s Calabrian mafia, the so-called ‘Ndrangheta. It’s
a secret society that relies upon building a public reputation for ruth-
lessness”. On the other side, however, authorities downplay its presence
in Australia (denialism): “the Honoured Society was never quite as big
and influential in Australia as people thought, former Victorian police-
man Brian ‘The Skull’ Murphy says”. In line with Lupo (2008: 191), the
denial or the downplaying of the presence of migrated mafia groups due
11
Operation Columbus, US District Court E.D.N.Y. F. #2014R00552 and Proc. No. 2082/2014
R.G.N.R. DDA Reggio Calabria.
12
Lawyer’s murder hints at secrets of Australia mafia, BBC News Australia, 26th March 2016
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-35858567.
238 7 Convergences and Divergences Across the Four Models
13
Mafia strongholds found in Aberdeen and London, claims EU, 20th August 2014, http://www.
express.co.uk/news/uk/501585/Mafia-Stronghold-Gang-Aberdeen-Scotland-SNP-London-EU-
Europe.
Section 2 The Mafia Spectrum: Focus on Structures and Activities 239
and its sub-cultural dangers for the child influences the judgement of
cases. In discussing these proceedings with an Antimafia Prosecutor
in Reggio Calabria, his take on these provisions is also very pragma-
tically based on the certainty that mafias (in this case, ‘ndrangheta)
have a social dimension, which impacts on the culture and the
education of the children. He says:
We were filming what [name of mafia boss in prison] was doing or whom
he was meeting during prison visits. There goes his 4-year-old daughter
who starts singing on the table songs with references to mafia, ‘ndrangheta
stuff. Not sure if it was staged for us, because he knew we were watching
or not. But it gave me the creeps; she was 4 years old. How can a 4-year-
old grow up that way, in that family . . . not just her parents, everything
around her? This is why we immediately alerted the Youth Tribunal, for
her own protection.
The prejudice of both the Youth Tribunal and the Antimafia in Calabria
feeds the Structure Model. The authorities’ knowledge of the criminal
system – structure – in place, allows them to justify interventions at the
local level to interfere with the perpetuation of that mafia subculture that
they already assume permeates the context.
Cultural elements that define the social dimensions of organised
crime phenomena are also part of local policing initiatives in the
UK. Durham Constabulary, for example, has launched in 2011
“Sledgehammer”, an ongoing operation to dismantle organised
crime groups in county Durham and Darlington while building
community resilience and awareness. Detectives in Durham use the
famous “Guess who?” game to encourage residents to be more careful
of what their neighbours are doing and to pass on any information
about suspicious activities anonymously to the police. Detectives in
Durham say that this campaign is meant to raise awareness that
organised crime might be happening next door and it can come in
many different forms, from sudden display of wealth, to suspicious
movements, to violence. A component of this tactic is also a partner-
ship with other local authorities to intervene with a range of programs
Section 2 The Mafia Spectrum: Focus on Structures and Activities 241
14
Durham County Council – Stronger Families Programme – http://www.durham.gov.uk/
strongerfamilies.
15
Durham Agency Against Crime – HAGGRID Project – http://www.daac.org.uk/index.php/
projects/haggrid.
16
“I have my foot on the necks of the criminals”: New no-nonsense police chief vows to “get in the faces”
of crooks – http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mike-barton-durham-police-chief-1368130.
242 7 Convergences and Divergences Across the Four Models
17
Genovese organized crime family associate sentenced to 28 months in prison for racketeering
conspiracy – https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/newyork/news/press-releases/genovese-
organized-crime-family-associate-sentenced-to-28-months-in-prison-for-racketeering-conspiracy.
Section 2 The Mafia Spectrum: Focus on Structures and Activities 243
18
Trade Union Royal Commission – Chapter 9 – Building and Constructions 2015 – https://
www.tradeunionroyalcommission.gov.au/reports/Documents/Final-Report/Volume-5/V5-CH-8.
pdf § 209.
19
By their colours: Outlaw motorcycle gang identification guide, 10 October 2013, http://www.
abc.net.au/news/2013-10-04/bikie-gangs-by-colours/4999510.
244 7 Convergences and Divergences Across the Four Models
the other side, the weight of their social dimension is still difficult to
include in the Visibility Model. A Victoria Police officer in Melbourne
notices “there is something in the structure and the nature of these clubs
that attracts people with similar criminal inclinations, not just locally
but nationally and internationally”; these groups, however, still remain
“rooted in their tribal culture of violence and honour, marked with
tattoos and denim or leather jackets, so to speak”. In practice, the
policing of OMCGs in Australia cannot forget, but still struggles to
include, the essential nature of these clubs, their origins and the pecu-
liarity of each chapter, their perpetuated image and certainly their way of
acting in their local environments. Their criminal nature might fit the
“Visibility”, but their social one is historically relevant and often
neglected in policing strategies concerned with the criminalisation of
status rather than behaviour.
offence (simple unlawful association, article 416 criminal code)? Or, how
different are the criminal enterprises targeted by one of the RICO charges
from the provisions to target drug trafficking transnational criminal net-
works in the US? In other words, by understanding the way policing
models qualify the threat of mafias and/or organised crime institutionally
and then in criminal law, we can also understand the way other connected
threats – for example drug trafficking – are approached. On the one hand,
systems that criminalise criminal structures will necessarily develop inter-
pretative tools to qualify both the inclusion and the exclusion of a threat,
i.e. criminal structure, within the legal requirements for the criminalisa-
tion of structures. On the other hand, a system that conceptualises
organised crime majorly in terms of activities will need to interpret what
constitutes an activity of organised crime – in terms of seriousness, for
example, or current trends of criminal markets, as taught by the British
and Australian models. As always things are not so cut and dry. Two very
good examples for this discourse, albeit obviously not the only possible
ones, are, on one side, the Italian “mafia aggravating factor” (article 7 law
decree 152/1991 as converted by law 231/1991) and, on the other side,
the policing of transnational drug trafficking in the US.
“Article 7” – as it is informally indicated by the Italian Antimafia
– allows the criminalisation of two conducts. First, an objective
conduct: the use of the mafia method by an individual who is not
affiliated with a mafia group or does not act within a mafia group,
but nevertheless uses the name and reputation of a known mafia
group to intimidate and instil fear in other subjects. Second, a
subjective conduct that does not require a successful commission of
the criminal activity: the intention to commit a crime to specifically
support or facilitate the activities of a known mafia group (Merenda,
2015). In a recent operation against a mafia clan in the North of
Calabria (in July 2016), the Antimafia prosecutors and the judge for
preliminary investigations in Catanzaro20 have charged a number of indi-
viduals with the mafia aggravating factor. The Tribunal21 notices the
20
Tribunale di Catanzaro, sezione GIP GUP – RGNR No. 4084/15 DDA + 3028/15 GIP.
21
Tribunale di Catanzaro, sezione GIP GUP – RGNR No. 4084/15 DDA + 3028/15 GIP, pp. 95–96.
246 7 Convergences and Divergences Across the Four Models
The ways through which the single individual can use the name of the
organisation can be the most diverse and concretely they vary also because
of the “mafiosity” of the territory and of the awareness, within civil
society, of the existence and the presence within the same context of a
more generalised mafia power.
and other emerging threats”. In fact, the program is aligned with the
2009 Southwest Border Strategy, as well as the 2010 Department of
Justice Strategy for Combating the Mexican Cartels. Both strategies aim
at “systematically degrade the power of the Mexican drug cartels, while
simultaneously improving the capacity of the Mexican law enforcement
institutions to confront the cartels domestically” (DOJ, 2013: 9).
Federal law respects these separations and the existing cooperation.
Together with RICO, the Controlled Substances Act (1970) is based
on a series of schedules: drugs are categorised and controlled to
varying degrees (US Code, Section 812). The transnational organised
crime strategy and the drug trafficking one start from the premise
that there surely is overlapping but not total similarity between the
two phenomena. While drug traffickers are more often than not
transnational organised crime groups, the opposite is not necessarily
true: organised crime can be local. Drug trafficking organisations are
considered “more fluid, activity-specific, more prone to quick
changes in organisations, and generally speaking, in the US today,
are equated, for better or worse, with Mexican cartels as it used to be
with Colombians”, as noticed by a federal judge in Brooklyn.
Organised crime groups, especially “traditional” ones, can be local,
can engage in finance or white collar crimes and can evolve differ-
ently. This helps us understand the shift from conceptualisations of
traditional organised crime and drug trafficking organisations leading
to the contemporary focus on transnational organised crime.
The existing synergy with the DNA [National Antimafia Prosecutor] has
marked a positive turnaround, with 1799 suspicious activities reported, of
which 247 sent to local DDA [District Antimafia Prosecutor] to be
immediately used at trial, and the remaining 1552 kept by the existing
shared working group to be used with other finalities [preventative mea-
sures] according to the Criminal Procedure Code.
The links between organised crime – mafias – and money laundering, indeed,
has led to the creation of shared platforms among Antimafia institutions,
with a view to link investigations, trials and prevention measures.
A similar approach, with an overlapping of money laundering and
organised crime discourses, can be found in the United States’ Civil
RICO procedures (18 U.S.C. § 1964(a)). Action can be taken to obtain
equitable relief when (1) a defendant committed or intended to commit
a RICO violation by establishing, with preponderance of evidence, the
same elements as in a criminal RICO case; and (2) that there is a
reasonable likelihood that the defendant will commit a violation in the
future. Defendants are usually legal enterprises – with outstanding
numbers of applications against labour unions – but authorities must
consider whether “an organised crime group participated in any of the
predicate racketeering offenses or exercised corrupt influence over any
250 7 Convergences and Divergences Across the Four Models
22
18 U.S.C. 1956. Section 1956 outlaws four kinds of money laundering – promotional,
concealment, structuring, and tax evasion laundering of the proceeds generated by designated
federal, state, and foreign underlying crimes (predicate offenses) – committed or attempted under
one or more of three jurisdictional conditions (i.e. laundering involving certain financial transac-
tions, laundering involving international transfers, and stings).
23
The Eligo National Task Force is an Australian Crime Commission Board approved task force
made up of the Australian Crime Commission, the Australian Federal Police, AUSTRAC, key
Commonwealth agencies and State and Territory law enforcement.
Section 2 The Mafia Spectrum: Focus on Structures and Activities 251
This is what we really mean when we say follow the money; of course
mafia members have money and this money is largely illicit, of course they
will launder it, of course your best bet is to confiscate it before the criminal
trial, if any, is over; otherwise it might be too late and you might not get
you what you ultimately want, which is to stop the reinvestment!
24
Director of the Assets Recovery Agency v Green and others [2005] All ER (D) 261 (Dec).
25
R v Anwoir and others [2008] EWCA Crim 1354.
26
Section 179E(3)POCA Australia states: “In proceedings under this section, the burden of
proving that a person’s wealth is not derived from one or more of the offenses . . . lies on the
person”.
Criminal Behaviours, National Labelling and Policing Models 253
country (Sergi and South, 2016), the clans in Campania are the ones
associated to the emergency since the early 1990s. The emergency in
Campania and the birth of the “ecomafia” label led, with many
difficulties and delays, to the approval of a new law on environ-
mental crimes in 2015.27 The report of Legambiente in 2016 con-
firms how the Campania region is still at the top of the list of
regions with the highest number of eco-crimes. Legambiente (2016)
uses terms like “green corruption” and “eco-criminal entrepreneur-
ship” to explain how the phenomenon of environmental illegality is
not just linked to mafia groups but rather to an extreme convergence
of interests between criminals and professionals, public officials,
white-collar criminals, bankers, politicians and other institutions.
Legambiente sees with favour the introduction of the new set of
general criminal laws in 2015. The use and the weight of the label
“ecomafia” in the preparation of the new law are linked to illegal
waste dumping and related health and environmental issues in
Campania, so they are specific. The national newspaper “Il
Corriere della Sera”28 – in reporting the approval of the new law
with a picture of the Terra dei Fuochi in Campania – shared a quote
from the President of the Commission on the Environment in the
House of Commons: “the law that introduces environmental crimes
in our criminal code is an important step to promote legality and
support a clean economy. Thanks to this law it will be easier to
avoid disasters like those of [ . . . ] the Land of Fire (Terra dei
Fuochi)”. The national newspaper L’Espresso in July 2016 reports
the first important sentence against an entrepreneur working with
the Casalesi clan, one of the most important camorra clans in Casal
del Principe, Campania. The man is called “the inventor of the
ecomafia”; sentenced to 20 years for mafia-type unlawful association,
environmental disaster, poisoning of water and extortion, he is one
of the faces of the Terra dei Fuochi in Campania (Ferrari, 2016).
27
Law 22 May 2015, no. 68.
28
Ecoreati, il via libera alla legge. Il Senato approva tra gli applausi – http://www.corriere.it/
politica/15_maggio_19/ecoreati-via-libera-legge-c5611c14-fe50-11e4-bed4-3ff992d01df9.shtml.
256 7 Convergences and Divergences Across the Four Models
Section 34(5) of the Policing and Crime Act 2009 defines gang-related
drug dealing as:
This provision has followed an increased concern over gang violence in the
past decade, signalled by the murder of 11-year-old Rhys Jones in Liverpool
in 2007 (Sergi, 2012; Treadwell and Gooch, 2015). Following the 2011
London riots and a renewed interest in tackling gang violence, changes to the
2009 act were made to include youth gang violence as well. After the Serious
Crime Act 2015, criminalising “activities of organised crime groups”, the
government issued new guidance on gang injunctions (HM Government,
2016b). A gang injunction aims at preventing the individual – and/or
protecting him/her – from engaging in, or encouraging or assisting,
gang-related violence or gang-related drug dealing activity. As
explained “gang injunctions allow a police force or local authority
to target the activities of every gang member at the same time,
maximising disruption and deterrence” (HM Government, 2016a:
7). Moreover, according to the same guidance notes “practitioners
often define three types of gang: peer pressure groups; urban street
gangs; and organised crime groups” (HM Government, 2016a: 7).
The overlapping between the language of gangs and of organised
crime, as already seen, is typical of the English Activity model. The
seriousness associated with gang violence is the reason behind the
gang injunctions. As noticed in the Home Office in 2015 when
presenting the changes to gang injunctions in the Serious Crime
Act 201529: “evidence from police and local authorities shows that
urban street gangs often engage in street drug dealing on behalf of
organised criminals, and some gangs aspire to and may become
organised crime groups in their own rights”. Once again, the
degree of sophistication and seriousness is what differentiates street
gangs and organised crime groups. While on one side these injunc-
tions were meant to target street and youth delinquency (Treadwell
and Gooch, 2015), the overlapping with organised criminality
reflects the enduring conceptualisation of the phenomenon of orga-
nised crime in the Activity model, for which organised crime
29
Serious Crime Act 2015. Fact Sheet – Gang Injunctions – https://www.gov.uk/government/
uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/431337/Fact_sheet_-_Gang_Injunctions_-_
Amendment_on_Gov-UK_-_01062015.pdf.
258 7 Convergences and Divergences Across the Four Models
There is significant overlap across the activities of OCGs and urban street
gangs and many gangs evolve into OCGs. Gangs tend to be less organised
and more concerned with perpetuating a threat of violence or harm across
a particular area (these areas are very small and can often be identified by
postcode) related to the gangs core activities.
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understanding and, thus, harmonisation. This is, for example, how the
Italian mafia-type unlawful association offence is often understood as
“membership offence” (UNODC, 2012; UNODC, 2004a); membership
offences, however, are offences that proscribe “named” organisations more
than complex participation offences based on collective, and not indivi-
dual, responsibility (which is the mafia-type offence in Italy).
Standardisation processes are a result of policy transfer. Policy
transfer can be considered one of the most visible results of the
effects of globalisation in criminal justice systems, primarily in
Western societies. Certainly, it has become more usual for states to
look at similar others (e.g., in the Anglo-Saxon world) in order to
find out and adopt “what works” in crime prevention and reduction
elsewhere. Nevertheless, as policy transfers are clearly not mono-
directional or mono-dimensional (Karstedt, 2001), important diver-
gences in policy-making still exist after the “transfer”; it has become
more and common to rely on international frameworks and agree-
ment to smooth such divergences. As noticed by Muncie (2005: 12):
“policy transfer is rarely direct and complete but is partial and
mediated through national and local cultures (which are themselves
changing at the same time). Policy transfer can be viewed as simply a
pragmatic response where nothing is ruled in and nothing ruled
out”. It is a seductive thought that we can learn what works from
others in a pragmatic and almost mechanical way, but it is a very
short-sighted thought the one that considers agreement on universal
standards possible without cognisance of local and peculiar cultures
and contexts. Throughout this book, I have hinted at the risks of
standardising concepts to communicate complex issues – such as
“organised crime” or “mafia”. I do advocate the need to embrace
the complexity of terms, even when it leads to making unpopular
choices, by, for example, resuming discourses on culture and “criminal”
culture specifically. Embracing the complexities of criminal(ised) phe-
nomena implies looking at the linkages between these phenomena and
the law and – because the law is national – at the social and cultural
specificities of the law at national level. The value for combining the legal
and the social analysis (via institutional perceptions) is that, by looking at
how criminal law and social conceptualisations interact, we can draw
International Frameworks, Cultural Relativism and Mutual Legal . . . 267
Mafias are not the normality because they are conceptualised as strategic,
long-term planning groups and usually hierarchical and rigid in nature.
As noticed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, while
there is no internationally accepted definition of “organised crime”, the
one adopted by the UN in the Palermo Convention 2000 “is a rather
broad definition, which does not consider organised crime solely in
terms of mafia-style organisations with a strict hierarchical structure”
(UNODC, 2009: 13). Certainly, as “transnational criminal activities are
a product of often ephemeral local opportunities” (Bąkowski, 2013b: 5),
and mafias are conceptualised as not ephemeral instead, then mafias do
not logically represent the average and “normal” form of organised
crime, whichever the definition of organised crime might be. If mafias
are not the “normal” or the “usual” manifestations of organised crime
activity, then it follows that international frameworks – especially those
promoting harmonisation of policies – will focus on the more general
concept of organised crime instead.
Scholars have been critical of this approach, as approximation does
not allow for deep engagement with the phenomena behind the
concepts (Mitsilegas, 2001). In particular, Calderoni criticises the
legislative framework proposed in the European Council
Framework Decision (FD) 2008/841/JHA of 24 October 2008 on
the fight against organised crime. The FD 2008/841/JHA repealed
Joint Action 98/733/JHA on participation in a criminal organisation
and followed the United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime of 2000 (the Palermo Convention1). By criticising
the process of approximation of criminal law in the EU more
1
General Assembly Resolution 55/25 of 15 Nov. 2000. See also United Nations, “Interpretative
notes for the official records (travaux préparatoires) of the negotiation of the United Convention
against Transnational Organized Crime” A/55/383 Add. 1 of 3 Nov. 2000; UN Office on Drugs
and Crime, “Travaux Préparatoires of the negotiations for the elaboration of the United Nations
Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols thereto” (2006); UN
Office on Drugs and Crime, Legislative Guides for the Implementation of the United Nations
Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols thereto (2004).
International Frameworks, Cultural Relativism and Mutual Legal . . . 269
2
Article 1 Council Framework Decision 2008/841/JHA of 24 October 2008 on the fight against
organised crime
Definitions
For the purposes of this Framework Decision:
1. “criminal organisation” means a structured association, established over a period of time, of
more than two persons acting in concert with a view to committing offences which are punishable
by deprivation of liberty or a detention order of a maximum of at least four years or a more serious
penalty, to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit;
2. “structured association” means an association that is not randomly formed for the immediate
commission of an offence, nor does it need to have formally defined roles for its members,
continuity of its membership, or a developed structure.
270 8 National Models and International Frameworks
3
Convention based on Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, on the establishment of a
European Police Office (Europol Convention) – Official Journal C 316, 27/11/1995 P. 0002 –
0032 – http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:41995A1127(01):EN:
HTML.
International Frameworks, Cultural Relativism and Mutual Legal . . . 271
4
Council Decision of 6 April 2009 establishing the European Police Office (Europol) OJ L 121,
15.5.2009 – http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32009D0371.
272 8 National Models and International Frameworks
5
Tampere European Council 15 And 16 October 1999 Presidency Conclusions –
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/summits/tam_en.htm.
International Frameworks, Cultural Relativism and Mutual Legal . . . 273
6
Model Treaty on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters (Adopted by General Assembly
resolution 45/117, subsequently amended by General Assembly resolution 53/112) A/RES/45/
117 68th plenary meeting 14 December 1990, p.143, via https://www.unodc.org/pdf/model_
treaty_mutual_assistance_criminal_matters.pdf.
7
EU Council Decision no. 12095/13.
Transnational Crimes, “Moving” Mafias and the Difficulty . . . 275
Italian OCGs exercise a level of control over their regions of origin which
is unparalleled in the EU. They are thus considered “mafia- type” orga-
nisations, i.e. protection rackets aiming to be the sole supplier of protec-
tion for all transactions in a given territory.
276 8 National Models and International Frameworks
8
Council Resolution Brussels, Creation of an operational network – @ON – to counter mafia-
style serious and organised crime groups, Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting Brussels, 4
December 2014
9
Interpol, 11 June 2012 – Media release – Italy’s fight against mafia a blueprint against transna-
tional organized crime, INTERPOL Chief tells Palermo meeting – http://www.interpol.int/
News-and-media/News/2012/PR048.
Transnational Crimes, “Moving” Mafias and the Difficulty . . . 277
A very similar point can be made for other countries outside the EU,
whereas claims of the transnational dimensions of (Italian) mafias have
increased because of the visibility of certain crimes these groups are
involved in. However, the criminal behaviours normally associated
with mafias – such as the control of the territory, racketeering, political
corruption and infiltration – might not be visible abroad, or (like in
Australia) they are not easily recognisable. Obviously the need to justify
the use of (usually limited) resources of policing forces requires sacrifices
and prioritisation: investing in policing what is not visible or manifested
is more difficult to justify. Outside of the EU, where international
frameworks are often advisory and consultive tools to promote coordi-
nation and harmonisation of policies, there is a more pronounced
tendency to approximate the language of mafias and organised crime
and equate organised crime activities with mafia activities.
problematic when they are transnational because they usually are “tradi-
tional” – and “national” instead. As noticed by Interpol (2014: 14):
The word “mafia” has become synonymous with organised crime from
Russia to Latin America, not just the original organisations that carry the
name [ . . . ] These groups resemble our traditional picture of organised
crime groups in name only.
[...]
The best-known organised crime groups, such as the Italian Mafia (in
reality three distinct groups: the Neapolitan Camorra, the Calabrian
N’drangheta10 and the Sicilian Cosa Nostra), the Chinese Triads and
the Japanese Yakuza have their own characteristics, based in their cultures
and countries.
10
Mispelled in the original text.
Transnational Crimes, “Moving” Mafias and the Difficulty . . . 279
rather useless and not less insulting perhaps to dub it Italian as there is
no such a thing as Italian organised crime per se. The difference is subtle
but clear. Calabrian organised crime or Calabrian mafia refers to the
“ndrangheta clans”, intended as mafia groups rooted into Calabrian
socio-cultural contexts and manifesting a discrete set of mafia behaviours
in Calabria, Italy and elsewhere. The same is not valid for Italian
organised crime. There is no such a thing as an “Italian” way of doing
organised crime unless we refer to vague and imprecise movie versions of
mafia behaviours. It seems, therefore that the attempt to neutralise what
is perceived to be defamatory ethnic terminology (Calabrian organised
crime or mafia is too specific and upsetting for the large Calabrian
community of Australia) ends up creating another prejudice, based on
wrong and uncertain premises. In Australia, the preference of an uncer-
tain and vague label like “Italian organised crime” and the avoidance of a
more precise but problematic “Calabrian mafia” label surely and right-
fully comes from the willingness to prevent the negative labelling of
migrant communities; the wish is to avoid the ethnic stigmatisation that
the US experiences with Sicilians. As mentioned before in Chapter 5, a
2002 paper published by the Australian Institute of Criminology,
claimed that it is a “myth”, especially in Australia, that “ethnicity is a
valid dimension for describing organised crime” (Morrison, 2002: 2).
The wish is to be politically correct. This, however, proves to be
unsuccessful; by using the adjective “Italian” instead, the stigmatisation
is simply made more imprecise. The risks associated to targeting ethnic-
based organised crime – the stigmatisation of communities – are still real
albeit veiled. As noticed by a senior police officer in New South Wales:
Naming the threat, when there is an ethnic element to it, let’s say the
Calabrian ‘ndrangheta, carries the risk that you are misunderstanding it in
the first place and that you end up placing the blame over entire commu-
nities. If you name the threat than you have to do or show that you are
doing something about it specifically, and this won’t be well received.
Mafias are a priority only for us, their strength and composition disappear
or dilute when they are abroad, so it is very difficult to go to colleagues and
ask them to do something about it: we are often dismissed as if we were
children obsessing over a toy or something, like we see the mafia every-
where or we have an agenda of some sort.
11
Press Release – European Parliament – MEPs demand new EU rules to improve fight against
organised crime and corruption – Plenary sessions – page 1 – http://www.europarl.europa.eu/
pdfs/news/expert/infopress/20161020IPR47883/20161020IPR47883_en.pdf.
12
European Parliament – Plenary Sitting – 7.10.2016 – REPORT on the fight against corruption
and follow-up of the CRIM resolution (2015/2110(INI)) Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice
and Home Affairs Rapporteur: Laura Ferrara – page 6 – http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/
getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fNONSGML%2bREPORT%2bA8-2016-0284%2b0%
2bDOC%2bPDF%2bV0%2f%2fEN.
13
Ibid. page 10.
On Transnational Policy Convergence 285
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288 8 National Models and International Frameworks
It is also true, anyway, that criminalisation does affect the way crimes
are reintroduced into, and received by, institutions and the public.
Legal asymmetries are indeed criminogenic, in the sense that they
create anomies and criminal opportunities and, at the global/transna-
tional level, loopholes in the legislations countering certain problems
(Passas, 2002; Passas, 1999b). This is clearly the case of Italy and the
offence for mafia-type unlawful association, which is certainly a unique
crime, effective because it targets a national autochthonous phenom-
enon and because it is rooted in the social dimensions of that problem,
obviously not transferrable because of the same reasons. If, on the one
hand, we can overcome certain legal asymmetries in substantial crim-
inal law through inclusive criminal procedures, on the other hand, it
appears more difficult to communicate cultural differences and recog-
nise cultural influences over the law. This is, once again, a discourse on
means and results, substance and methods. Even if we can reach the
same results – for example, 10 years in prison sentence – in criminalis-
ing similar conducts, it does not mean that in doing so we actually
understand each other’s cultural and social reasons to implement a
certain policy; at times not even specialist linguistic translation delivers
sufficient levels of accuracy in the depth that criminal law would
require to fully integrate with national cultures or at least awareness
of cultures. In light of all the aforementioned, I will conclude this book
by arguing that forms of policing through cultural awareness could
support better results in comparative and international policing, by
countering the tendency towards approximation of language and by
adding substance to policy transfers. In order to do this, the first issue
is to challenge an obsolete and fixed idea of mafias, which, more or less
directly, has been contrasted with the one of organised crime. I argue
that the two phenomena can be reconciled if we consider the spectrum
at the basis of this book. For this reconciliation to make a difference in
policing, I believe the concept of mafia needs to be rehabilitated and re-
defined within a cultural perspective. I will identify the benefits of a
socio-behavioural approach to redefine mafias under cultural lenses
and advocate for a policing strategy that, also across borders, considers
this approach. This, I believe, is the beginning of promising research in
the field.
292 Conclusion: A Socio-behavioural Approach in Policing . . .
1
Operation “Fiori della Notte di San Vito”, DDA Milano, RGNR. No. 4/1995, 2455/1995,
2506/1995 GIP.
294 Conclusion: A Socio-behavioural Approach in Policing . . .
What seemed difficult to observe in the North of Italy was the presence of
the “traditional” values of solidarity and honour that, according to the
Tribunal in Milan, are fundamental to define and recognise the ‘ndran-
gheta in Calabria. What was, and still is, easier to detect, instead, is a
criminal network heavily engaged in drug trafficking. Thanks to their
involvement in the drug trade, individuals had gained their autonomy
from “original” clans in Calabria. The Tribunal, however, observed, in the
first trial3:
This is precisely the point: the ‘ndrangheta and the clan Mazzaferro were not
born with a specific plan in mind to commit a specific crime, like drugs,
kidnappings, robberies or else. The real aim of the ‘ndrangheta is mutual
assistance, is about offering the right ways, the right connections, the right
2
Operation “Fiori della Notte di San Vito”, Sentenza N. 2991/1997, depositata 19.01.1998,
Tribunale Ordinario di Milano, p. 13.
3
Operation “Fiori della Notte di San Vito”, Sentenza N. 2991/1997, depositata 19.01.1998,
Tribunale Ordinario di Milano, p. 72.
Socio-behavioural Approaches to Mafias and Organised Crime 295
people for every circumstance, each in their own territory whose control needs
to be secured.
The way individuals talked to each other about meeting at the bar, without
even specifying which bar, was considered indicative of the affiliation; the
participation to such bar meetings on Saturdays can be considered as the
minimum requisite to be active in the clan and up to date with what was
going on and does echo habits of the clans in their hometown in Calabria
4
Operation “Fiori della Notte di San Vito”, Sentenza n.3070/1999, depositata 16.05.2000, Corte
d’Appello di Milano, p. 589.
296 Conclusion: A Socio-behavioural Approach in Policing . . .
(Meli, 2015). These are the types of social behaviours infused in culture
and whose meaning is rooted in culture.
While the understanding of any (criminal) group’s dynamic can
always be subjected to an observation of the social interactions, and
therefore behaviours, among members and between members and exter-
nals, the exploitation of shared behaviours within a specific cultural
system is typical of mafias and can be less visible in other criminal
groups more or less organised to commit crimes. In other words, it is
important to look at the social behaviours of criminal groups in society,
from a social psychology perspective, but social behaviours are not
necessarily characterised by references to a single, or identifiable, cultural
heritage. In other words, not all social behaviours are expressions of a
specific or single culture, but rather belonging or coming from a specific
culture means sharing social categorisations and common understanding
of social and behavioural practices (Chryssochoou, 2004). When dis-
cussing organised crime and mafias in a social psychology perspective,
then we can observe that when shared cultural roots define the links of a
group with a society and cultural roots are exploited for criminal
purposes, then the group is on the mafia side of the spectrum. Under
this perspective, cultural aspects of mafias are always social behaviours of
groups and individuals in groups. Conversely, if there is no systemic
exploitation of cultural roots or if this exploitation does not define the
group’s dynamic, then the group is more on the “organised crime” side
of the spectrum. In other words, the relationship between the cultural
and the criminal side of a group draws the line between a policing
approach targeting structures and a policing approach targeting
activities.
Let us see an example of the relationship between cultural and criminal
characteristics in defining (and identifying) a mafia group. As said, the
importance, and the exploitation, of social gathering, festivities, ceremonies
and rituals of a certain culture for the existence and the fortification of the
group are essential to the understanding and the qualification of mafia
phenomena. This is for example the case of the “Madonna della
Montagna” in Calabria, a religious celebration in the Calabrian mountain
of the Aspromonte in early September. According to Operation Crimine, this
celebration – dear to many Calabrians – is also the occasion for ‘ndrangheta
Socio-behavioural Approaches to Mafias and Organised Crime 297
members – who also share Calabrian traditions, as they are Calabrians and
live in Calabria – to meet, congratulate each other on new achievements and
agree on new strategies and partnerships (Sergi and Lavorgna, 2016). This
festivity is also celebrated, with many similar rituals, among Calabrian
migrants in Australia: it “is not venerated in a church, but in a locale that
Calabrian migrants feel belongs to them, an appropriation of the Australian
landscape [ . . . ] at the edge of the Reggio Calabria Club car park in
metropolitan Melbourne” (Papalia, 2008: 65). Noticeably, the Reggio
Calabria Club has been indicated in many occasions as a popular hangout
place for ‘ndrangheta members in the city especially following the world’s
biggest drug bust of 2008 (see Chapter 5) (McKenzie et al., 2015) and the
murder of lawyer Joseph Acquaro in 2016 (Bucci et al., 2016). On one side,
“by its direct association with the sublime symbol of the Madonna della
Montagna, the Reggio Calabria Club has become the pre-eminent sacred
Calabrian space” in Melbourne (Papalia, 2008: 67). On the other side,
during the bail hearing for Pasquale Barbaro,5 afterwards convicted for the
2008 drug case,6 “surveillance material will reveal a plan by Mr Barbaro and
others to attend the Reggio Calabria Club on 24 July 2008 to murder
Michael Barbaro”.
On the other side of the mafia-OC spectrum, when the links of a
group with a society are best defined not by the exploitation of culture
but by the seriousness of their criminal activities and by the individuals’
behaviours to pursue profits through those activities, then the group can
be residually considered on the organised crime side of the mafia–OC
spectrum. A socio-behavioural approach is still valid to understand
groups’ dynamics but it is not culturally relevant. In Australia, for
example, the Federal Court describes what organised crime behaviour
means within this framework in a case of 20007:
5
Magistrates’ Court of Victoria – In the matter of the Bail Act 1977 (Vic) and in the matter of
Applications for Bail by Pasquale Barbaro, Case No.s X02285456 Y01046940, 2 August 2010,
page 18.
6
DPP (Cth) v Barbaro & Zirilli [2012] VSC 47 (23 February 2012).
7
Federal Court of Australia, Wan v Minister for Immigration & Multicultural Affairs [2000] FCA
1822.
298 Conclusion: A Socio-behavioural Approach in Policing . . .
It is the Claimant’s case that by the late 1980s his name was being
“abused”, in the sense that he was being falsely associated with criminality
without any proper factual basis. It was one of his complaints in the trial
that he had acquired a reputation for dishonesty and as a man of violence,
that this reputation had been fostered by the police, and that it was false
and without foundation. He accepted in evidence that people had used his
name to threaten others, but explained: “I think this is where the situation
has got out of hand . . . because I had a good name in my area as being a
good person and a gentleman, and I believe people took that out of
context, in their advantage in maybe doing drugs etc, and this is where
the reputation has come from without me knowing.”
8
Times Newspapers Limited v David Hunt Case No: HQ10D02588 High Court of Justice
Queen’s Bench Division 4 July 2013 [2013] EWHC 1868 (OB) – 2013 WL 3353667.
A Redefinition of the Mafia Concept for a Cultural Integration . . . 299
and the social behaviours of the claimant are certainly relevant to define
the crime. We do not know whether any specific cultural aspect was
considered throughout the case, but the seriousness of violent acts, the
claimant’s reputation and the way he behaved in the territory all point to
an individual integrated in his community. Certain (serious) crimes can
happen anywhere, but the relationship with the community needs to be
assessed from a social and then a cultural perspective too. Looking for
socio-behavioural aspects of criminal groups allows considering culture
as one of these behaviours but not as a necessary characteristic to qualify
the crime and the group committing the crime. If there is no element
pointing at (the exploitation of) culture but nevertheless certain social
behaviours (across the spectrum) can be identified, then the group is,
residually, organised crime.
From a policing point of view, this perspective necessarily shifts the
focus from a legalistic approach, which looks at criminalisation and the
reasons of criminalisation of either or both organised crime and mafias,
to a sociological – culturally aware – approach on the contexts of such
criminalisation.
Cultural categories, habits and sensibilities are embedded in, and consti-
tutive of, our political and economic institutions. The study of culture
does not begin where the study of power and economies leaves off – it is a
constituent part of any political and economic analysis.
300 Conclusion: A Socio-behavioural Approach in Policing . . .
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Index
Civil RICO, 115, 125, 126, 127, Cosa Nostra, 16, 33, 43, 50, 62–67,
130, 233, 234, 249 69, 70, 71, 83, 102–107,
Cocaine, 150, 182, 183, 185 109–111, 113, 117–119,
Colonisation, 73, 235 128, 132, 135, 222, 230,
Common law, 3, 22, 24, 49, 86, 102, 237, 246, 278
120, 158, 159, 166, 196, 197 Counter-terrorism, 109, 117, 158
Commonwealth Criminal intelligence, 7, 30, 44, 143,
of Australia, 150, 152 148, 151, 155, 156, 158,
Comparative criminal justice, 2, 8–9 192–194, 222, 224, 231
Conceptual convergences, 216, Criminalisation, 21, 23–26, 29, 31,
223, 235 36, 39, 50, 63, 80, 85, 88, 93,
Conceptual divergences, 226 94, 124, 131, 134, 158, 160,
Confiscation, 6, 88, 89–91, 94–95, 170, 197, 198, 205, 206, 223,
161, 162–163, 167, 199–200, 227, 229, 233, 235, 243,
217–218, 223, 230–235, 251, 244–248
252, 272–273, 275 Criminal lifestyle, 170, 198–200,
Confiscation, criminal, 6, 89, 90, 205, 206, 233
161, 163, 167, 200, 217, 232, Cultural awareness, 291
233, 235, 252 Cultural relativism, 11, 265, 267,
Confiscation, non-conviction 275, 280
based, 162, 163, 218, 251 Culturemes, 278
Connivance, 40–42, 45–47, 49
Conspiracy, 23, 25, 26, 86, 101,
103–107, 109–111, 115–117, D
120–122, 127, 132, 133, 142, Delocalisation, 68, 73, 235
160, 165–167, 178, 179, Department of Justice, USA, 110,
195–197, 199, 203, 205, 227, 224, 247
236, 237, 269, 298, 302 Disorganised crime, 28, 186
Control of the territory, 38, 39, 42, Disruption, 30, 192–194, 204, 205,
46, 75, 77, 80, 82, 246, 277 224, 230, 235, 257
Corruption, 31, 40–41, 47, 63, 64, Double-track system, 78, 225
66, 75, 76, 84, 85, 89, 111, Drug Networks, 161, 244
119, 124, 125, 126, 129, 133, Drug offences, 161
135, 142, 147, 185, 187, 191, Drug trafficking, 26, 68, 93, 112,
198, 200, 201, 204, 206, 123, 124, 151, 158, 169, 179,
227–230, 239, 242, 249, 250, 181, 182, 185, 189, 199, 218,
254, 255, 271, 277, 279, 219, 223, 234, 237, 245–248,
281–284 251, 271, 273, 277, 279, 294
Index 311
E G
Economic crimes, 7, 113, 130, 131 Gangs, 38, 93, 113, 115, 130,
Enterprise Model, 17, 51, 101, 143–146, 152, 153, 155, 160,
128, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 164, 166, 168, 177–182,
215, 217, 224, 227, 228, 233, 186–190, 198, 202, 203, 205,
239, 250 220, 226, 231, 234, 243, 253,
Enterprise Theory of 257–258
Investigation, 113 Gioia Tauro, 68
Environmental crime, 253–255 Globalisation, 30, 44, 62, 111, 112,
Ethnicity, 106, 151, 152, 115, 179, 266, 290
184, 280, 300 Glocalisation, 220, 223
Ethnocentrism, 11, 267, The Godfather, 101, 106, 220
280, 281, 305 Governance, 27, 29, 31, 35, 39–41,
EU framework decision, 271 70, 186, 239
European Arrest Warrant, 272 Grey area, 171
European Union, 238, 271–273,
275, 276
Europol, 6, 218, 225, 270, 272, 274, H
276, 278 Harmonisation of policies, 268, 290
External participation, 85–87, 94, Harm principle, 22
228, 285 Harm reduction, 192, 193, 204–205,
230, 247
Hybridisation, 44, 70, 73, 77, 109,
F 135, 149
Falcone, Giovanni, 33, 34, 64–66
Famiglia Basilischi, 62, 254
Family ties, 42 I
Federal Bureau of Investigations, 104 Illicit enterprise, 105, 107, 113, 115,
Financial Action Task Force, 116, 127, 131, 133, 134
FATF, 283 Infiltration, 36, 39–42, 47, 72, 73,
416-bis Italian Criminal Code, 67, 75, 88, 94, 117, 122, 125, 127,
79, 224 131, 133, 171, 239, 242, 250,
Fiscal Police, Italy, 6 269, 275, 277
312 Index
Institutional perceptions, 10, 12, 15, La Cosa Nostra, 50, 102, 103–104,
16, 17, 47, 48, 49, 136, 180, 105, 110, 111, 113, 117, 118,
191, 198, 202, 236, 253, 256, 119, 128, 132, 135, 222, 230
266, 292 LCN, 103, 106, 107, 110, 112,
Intentions, 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 114, 117–118, 119, 124, 135,
17, 18, 101, 189, 196, 221, 222, 242
230, 286, 301, 304 Legal asymmetries, 265, 278, 289,
International frameworks, 18, 290–291
265–268, 271, 273, 274, 275, Liberal progressive denialism, 237
281, 283, 290 Liverpool, 6, 180–184, 203, 257
International organised Liverpool Mafia, 182
crime, 107–110, 112, London, 2, 6, 7, 177, 179–180,
114–117, 247 182, 183–186, 187–188,
Interpol, 183, 276, 277 191, 193, 196, 218, 220,
Intimidation, 42, 63, 76, 80–84, 225, 229, 231, 257
185–187, 269, 294, 300
Italian Criminal Code, 35, 79,
224, 284 M
Italian mafia, 2, 3, 10, 12, 14–16, 32, Madonna della Montagna, 296–297
48, 49, 50, 61, 62, 67, 71, 73, Mafia, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8–18, 21–28,
91, 92, 106–107, 111, 117, 235, 31–50, 61–95, 101–113, 114,
246, 266, 275–279, 290, 304 115, 117, 119–125, 128, 132,
Italian organised crime, 150, 276, 133, 134, 135, 136, 142, 143,
278, 279–280 146–153, 160, 165, 167, 169,
170, 171, 180, 182, 185–189,
201–203, 215, 216, 218, 219,
J 220, 221, 222, 224–230, 232,
Joint Money Laundering Intelligence 233, 235–242, 244–247,
Taskforce, 250 249, 251, 253–255, 266, 267,
268, 274–281, 283–286,
K 290–296, 299–303
Kefauver Committee, 104, 119 Mafia behaviour, 21, 34, 70, 82, 83,
Kray brothers, 177, 184 95, 167, 280, 290
Mafia Capitale, 63, 73,
74–76, 82, 87
L Mafia conspiracy, 101, 103, 104,
Labelling, 253, 256, 258, 274, 106–107, 109, 110, 115,
279–280, 303 238, 302
Index 313
Mafia method, 76, 77, 79, 80, 83, 191, 198, 200, 202, 204, 206,
84, 85, 93–94, 245, 246, 302 219, 226, 231, 275
Mafia-OC spectrum, 37, 142, 180, ‘Ndrangheta, 2, 16, 50, 62, 63–64,
201, 228, 292, 297 67–70, 72–74, 79, 82–84, 143,
Mafia, Italian-American, 12, 14, 21, 146–150, 159, 169–171,
32, 48–49, 50, 62, 67, 71, 73, 220–222, 228, 236–237, 240,
92, 101, 103, 106, 119, 226 254, 276, 279, 280, 294–296
Mani Pulite, 64, 66 ‘Ndrangheta in Australia, 71, 147,
MDMA, 150 169, 220, 237
Melbourne, 7, 144, 146, 147, 150, ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria, 62, 67,
151, 159, 162, 169, 218, 225, 83, 148
237, 244, 297 ‘Ndrangheta in Italy, 69
Membership offence, 83, 85, 89, 93, ‘Ndrangheta in the USA, 71
195, 196, 197, 226, 233, 266 ‘Ndrangheta mobility, 235
Mens rea, 23, 81 ‘Ndranghetisation, 221, 222
Metropolitan Police, London, 6, 9/11, 102, 103, 107–111, 114, 117,
184, 188, 193, 220, 225, 229 134, 135
Mob, 117, 120, 123, 220, 242 New York City, 7, 106, 115, 133,
Mobility, 38, 44, 45, 92, 235–236, 236, 242
238, 289 Nigerian Clans in Sicily, 246
Money laundering, 6, 72, 74, 88, 89,
111, 131, 145, 156, 161, 162,
183–186, 189, 195, 198, 199, O
200–201, 205–206, 217, 219, OC-Mafia Spectrum, 38, 41, 42, 45,
223, 224, 229, 231–232, 235, 46, 48, 49–50, 187, 244
248, 249–251, 271, 273, 279, Omertà, 34, 42, 43, 46, 62, 80–81,
281, 282, 283, 285 83, 84, 294, 300, 301
Multi-agency approach, 120, 224 Onorata Società, 147
Mutual legal assistance, 265, Operation Aemilia, 73, 74
271–272, 274, 305 Operation Bellu Lavuru, 221
Operation Crimine, 69–70, 294, 296
Operation Fiori della Notte di San
N Vito, 293
National Crime Agency, 2, 6, 185, Operation Infinito, 73, 83, 294
192, 193, 224, 250 Operation Maglio 3, 83
National security, 30, 31, 110, 114, Operation Mamma Santissima, 221
115, 117, 135, 153, 155, Operation Mondo di Mezzo, 73–74,
165–166, 168, 179, 189–190, 75, 82
314 Index
P R
Palermo Convention, 29, 268, 269, Racketeering, 118, 120, 121, 122,
270, 271, 281, 283, 285 123, 125, 127, 129, 131, 134,
Participation in criminal 135, 234, 242–243, 249, 277
activities, 197 Reputation, 42, 44, 45, 50, 75, 84,
Pattern of racketeering 101, 145, 182, 185–186, 190,
activities, 122, 125 200, 237, 245, 250, 270,
POCA Act, Australia, 233 298–299, 301
POCA Act, UK, 232, 234 RICO Act, 103, 113, 119, 125, 131,
Policing models, 2, 3, 10, 11–12, 14, 134, 135
17, 18, 47, 48, 49, 216, 219, Rome, 6, 7, 39, 63, 65, 73, 74–75, 80,
244, 253, 274, 292 82, 84, 85, 87, 222, 228, 232
Policy transfer, 18, 266, 285
Politics, 31, 37, 41, 61, 63, 64, 66,
75, 84, 85, 88, 94, 95, 102, S
220, 227, 290 Sacra Corona Unita, 62
Prevention, 1, 36, 44, 79, 89, 95, Secrecy, 31, 35, 38, 42–47, 62, 81,
157, 158, 193, 194, 195, 199, 221, 224
204–205, 219, 224, 229–231, Securitisation, 30, 31, 102–103,
233, 241, 249, 258, 266 108–110, 115, 134, 171
Prison, 190, 225, 226, 240, 291 Self-laundering, 231, 232
Index 315